The New York Times yesterday reported a recall of tomatoes across national food chains:

McDonald's, Wal-Mart and other chains have halted sales of some raw tomatoes as federal health officials work to trace the source of a multistate outbreak of salmonella food poisoning. Burger King; Outback Steakhouse, a division of OSI Restaurant Partners; Chipotle Mexican Grill; and Taco Bell, a unit of Yum Brands, were among other restaurants that were voluntarily withdrawing tomatoes from their menus after federal recommendations that consumers avoid red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes unless they were grown in certain states and countries...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said at least 23 people have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported."

The tomato scare is just another example in a series of food recalls over the last several years. The first few culprits were meat - beef recalled for E.Coli or Mad Cow Disease. Meat eaters started avoiding certain brands and cuts, and began over-cooking everything. Vegetarians rejoiced in smug victory of their worry-free diet. Then came spinach (organic spinach, at that!), lettuce, and even dog food. All of a sudden, everything was suspect - no food seemed entirely safe. Of course, as time passed, the recalls were largely forgotten, and people got back to eating as normal...but not without an extended sense of wariness.

This tomato recall too, shall pass. What remains, however, is an industrial food system that favors machines over people, and productivity over quality...

World leaders attending the UN Food Summit in Italy this week will be met with modest meal choices come lunchtime. Well, sort of.

According British paper, Times Online, officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization are keen on avoiding claims of hypocrisy for serving lobster and foie gras while discussing global salvation. Said one official, "At the last summit in 2002 we did not give enough thought to the menu and were open - unfairly, in our view - to the charge of hypocrisy."

As someone who has planned many events for an environmental non-profit, I know how challenging it can be to model an organizations values at its events. Somehow, even with the most careful planning, there's always an overlooked detail - disposable cups where there could be real glass, or garbage cans where there could be a compost bin. So I sympathize with the FAO organizers who probably spent so much time planning the Summit sessions that they forgot how much every meal is a micro-session in itself. Then I looked at the menu.

At the last Summit in 2002, attendees were treated to:

Foie gras and toast with kiwi fruit
Lobster in vinaigrette
Fillet of goose with olives
Seasonal vegetables
Compote of fruit with vanilla
Vins multiple fine wine

Yikes! Foie gras AND lobster? And...goose?! After a lunch like that, its hard to believe they got anything done in their afternoon sessions. Talk about a food coma.

In 2008, the menu "was toned" down to:

Vol...

When was the last time you ate a banana? This morning, sliced on your cereal? As a pick me up after a power yoga class? According to an article in Plenty Magazine, finding a banana to eat might soon become a lot more difficult:

"Back in 2003, the magazine New Scientist ran a cover story declaring that the banana was on the brink of extinction. The problem, the article explained, was that commercial bananas were genetically bankrupt: sterile, seedless clones with no genetic diversity and no resistance to a new wave of virulent fungal diseases...Scientists say, the outlook is still pretty bleak for the banana. Commercial growers remain wedded to a single variety known as the Cavendish, the bright yellow fruit found on US supermarket shelves; meanwhile, a lethal and fungicide-resistant infection called Panama Disease has decimated plantations across Southeast Asia and is widely expected to spread into plantations in Latin America and Africa."

Bananas rank above apples and oranges (two other highly-hybridized fruits) as America's most beloved and purchased fruit. According to an article in the New York Times from 2004, more than 8 billion pounds of bananas were sold in the US in 2003, an average of 84 per person. And while they are hardly local or seasonal in America (with the exception of Hawaii and parts of Florida) - even many of the most die-hard locavores make exceptions for the banana, which is nourishing, tasty, and possibly the most convenient snack on the planet. (It comes...

This summer, corporate behemoth, Wal-Mart, is jumping on the "eat local" bandwagon. According to the state of Maine's official website:

The Maine Potato Board, Wal-Mart Supercenters, Bushwick Potato Company, and Guerrette Farms have embarked on a campaign to bring the freshest tablestock potatoes to Maine consumers. Wal-Mart Supercenters across the state will feature ten-pound bags of potatoes with the "Get Real, Get Maine!" logo.

The irony of one of the largest, community-crushing corporations supporting local farmers is not lost on me. But to it's credit, over the last few years Walmart has made great strides to clean up its act (or it's bad image, which has at least some of the same impact as cleaning up its act) - donating money to charitable causes, and engaging in sustainability work with Adam Werbach's environmental consulting firm. According to the Maine website, Wal-Mart's Vice President of Produce, Ron McCormick could have been quoting a locavore activist when he said, "It's important to Wal-Mart to support local growers and we're proud to work with the Maine Potato Board to offer our customers this outstanding produce."

Maybe Wal-Mart has heard the siren call of the booming local foods movement, or maybe their head honchos' hearts are in the right place. But do locavores really want Wal-Mart batting on their team?

As Michael Pollan and many others have indicated, Wal-Mart's impact on the organics movement (they started selling organic produce in 2006) has made marginal progress on the front of making organics acceptable and...

Yesterday's New York Times told the story about a soup kitchen called Masbia in Borough Park (a hasidic Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY) that strives to offer a more dignified meal to its guests. Unlike most regular soup kitchens which seat diners at long, communal tables, Masbia is set up to resemble a restaurant with tables separated by screens and fake plants to grant guests privacy. Last week, diners were treated 16-ounce steaks, a once-a-year treat at Masbia in honor of "Grand Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner of Kerestir, Hungary, who died in 1925 and who was known for feeding the hungry and other acts of charity."

The kitchen at Masbia is kosher, making it the only option viable option for religious Jews who need assistance, but do not eat non-kosher food. But while the soup kitchen primarily serves members of the hasidic Jewish community, unobservant Jews and non Jews are also welcomed.

Masbia mirrors another organization in New York called the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, which sets up its food pantry like a regular grocery store where members can shop for the items they need at no charge to them. Both of these organizations follow the logic that the country's needier citizens deserve respect, not simply hand-outs.

In contrast, a different Times article last fall reported how food banks across the country are reporting the worst food shortages in years - and are unable to even provide the quantity of food needed, let alone the quality. '"...