Latest experiment in Pie

Worked out well, perhaps too much so.

More experiments...

experiments in Pie

fasting

This is useful information:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49462/title/Running-on-Empty/

in the kitchen....

Maybe GMO seeds are not all that?

An article in Grist questions the actual improvements due to the use of GMO seeds. http://grist.org/article/gmo-fail-monsanto-foiled-by-feds-supreme-court-and-science/

But GMOs took the biggest punch this week from academia: Tom Philpott highlights a USDA-funded study [PDF] by University of Wisconsin scientists who found that several types of GMO seeds (including Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready varieties) actually produce a lower yield than conventional seeds. Only one seed — a corn that produces its own pesticide to combat the corn borer — offers any significant yield benefit. In other words, planting most genetically modified seeds results in less harvest per acre than planting non-genetically modified seeds.

Its worth following the links on this, the study seems credible.   Nothing is black and white, I expect there are cases where a GMO product may be beneficial to crop yields, particularly in the short-term, at least maybe.  But what is certain is that the large seed companies patenting these technologies, and using interlocking product strategies that Microsoft would be proud of, stand to make a lot of money. Corner the market on food production with a patent strategy, anyone? Queue the efforts to discredit the study.

patenting seeds?

Good overview article by Carey Gilliam in Reuters about an upcoming court case regarding seed patents.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/10/us-monsanto-lawsuit-idUSBRE8B917T20121210

I'm all for protecting innovation, but I'm not so much for using the patent system to leverage innovation protection into non-competitive market dominance or oppression. There are real policy issues: food policy, farm policy, food safety, as well as intellectual property policy.  I hope the path forward incorporates all the considerations that affect the economic health of society, and not just considerations of intellectual property maximization designed to benefit the incumbent biggest corporations.  Just sayin'

Thanks to the interwebs for a photo of seeds.

buying your laws - oligarchy

So this might be an example of how large corporations buy favorable laws & regulations through campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, etc...  http://www.alternet.org/food/156195

Partially related: http://boingboing.net/2012/06/13/meritocracies-become-oligarchi.html

I could have said that we've decided that the people who are the best at making money must obviously also be the best at all other activities, like governing or setting policy, or maybe heart-surgery or philosophy.  But really, its just that the aggregation of great wealth has become so concentrated wealth-holders have unprecedented mechanisms for re-shaping society into forms that solely benefit further wealth consolidation.  Its ironic that at a time in history when we have, also, unprecedented mechanisms for broadening democracy and citizenship, we've decided instead to build a class of wealth those in the Gilded Age could have imagined only with envy.

food/health

I've been trying to find a good way to say this.   Andy Bellatti finds it for me, thanks to Wendell Berry.

Andy Bellatti MS, RD @andybellatti
 "People fed by food industry, which pays no attention to health, & treated by health industry, which pays no attn to food." - Wendell Berry