Food News Feed

French politicians have approved a draft law that declares foie gras part of the national heritage, despite widespread international concern about cruelty to animals during its production. With customary Gallic insouciance, lawmakers have effectively given the kind of protection normally accorded great works of art to a dish whose manufacture by force-feeding geese and ducks is banned in 13 other EU member states.

Despite an American-led "Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass" campaign, boycotts from celebrity chefs and strict legal quotas on the catch, Chilean sea bass still sells briskly in the United States for as much as $20 a pound - nearly five times what it cost when it first appeared in U.S. markets in the 1980's...But Chilean sea bass today have become the signature species in a battle of global proportions. Put in very blunt terms, the world is running out of fish.

Ron Popeil, gadget hawker extraordinaire, sold his company in August. For more than 40 years, he has sliced and diced his way into millions of American homes, hawking everything from the Chop-O-Matic vegetable slicer to the Showtime Rotisserie BBQ. With a passion for inventing quirky yet broadly appealing items for the kitchen and home, and his inimitable silver-tongued pitch, Popeil has created a billion-dollar gadget empire.
Related: Homage to Dan Akryod's Bass-o-matic!

Much of the produce served at L'Arpege comes from Passard's organic vegetable garden outside Paris, including the beet that Gopnik briefly mentioned in the following passage: "...the beet is cooked in a crust of gros sel, as duck and lamb have been for centuries, and then the crust is broken with a flourish and the beet is delicately sliced and served, with a light jus, as the main course."

A hip Mission District cafe has become the unlikely nerve center for a new wave of software innovators, amid signs of a second internet gold rush. Ritual Coffee Roasters opened just this May, but thanks to free Wi-Fi, French-pressed coffees and gourmet espresso, it has already become a favorite temporary home to some of the best-known Web 2.0 startups.

The Royal Society for the Preventation of Cruelty to Animals praised McDonald's for changing egg suppliers to those that use only free range eggs, and lauded its cattle handling standards. Now McDonald's can use the RSPCA's logo to identify it as a business committed to higher welfare standards.

Until 1990 Brazil produced only enough beef to feed itself. Since then its cattle herd has grown by some 50 million, and the country has become, according to some estimates, the world's biggest exporter: it now sells 1.9m tonnes a year. The United Kingdom is its fourth-largest customer...The past three years have been the most destructive in the Brazilian Amazon's history. In 2004 26,000 sq km of rainforest were burned: the second- highest rate on record. This year could be worse. And most of it is driven by cattle ranching.

{Editors note: We LOVE Umbra. Uh huh.} Let's be careful not to make the situation too black and white, though. Life-cycle analyses can help separate and elucidate factors at play, but they also raise questions. There is some indication in these studies that sustainably raised, locally procured meat-based diets can hold their own, environmentally, against heavily processed, far-shipped veggie diets. So I prefer to believe that eating my local bacon is better than eating frozen veggie burgers, not just gastronomically but ecologically.