Animal Production

Could L.A. Become a Honeybee Mecca? The Backwards Beekeepers Are on It

Where To Drink Picon Punch With the Basques in Bakersfield

Ask for a Picon Punch in Bakersfield and the locals will know you are an out-of-towner. Here in Bako, it's just a Picon, thank you very much. Outside of the Basque country and Central California's Bakersfield, which has the largest Basque population in the States, most of the general populace have ... More >>

Half of U.S. Meat Contaminated With Superbugs

Nearly half of U.S. meat is contaminated with "superbugs"--antibiotic-resistant bacteria--according to an Environmental Working Group analysis of recently released government tests. Medical News Today reported the findings. The "dirtiest" meat is ground turkey, 81 percent of which contained the da ... More >>

Chicken Over Beef: KFC's Boneless Fried Chicken Nontraditional Burger Alternatives

Poultry is no longer an afterthought at traditionally beef-oriented fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King, which earlier this year launched, respectively, a chicken wrap and a turkey burger on their menus. For insiders, the new items are just evident of a longtime wave toward beef alterna ... More >>

How a Sardine Surplus in India May Change Our Daily Diet

Sardines may not be what's for regular seafood dinners in Los Angeles, unlike in Mumbai where there is plenty to be found at a local wholesale fish market. There is a more direct tie, however, between L.A. and Mumbai seafood supplies than a comparison of what goes onto one's dinner plate. As reporte ... More >>

Feds Shut Down Historic Northern California Oyster Farm

If you, like some of us, were in the vicinity of Point Reyes in Northern California last week and did not enjoy some fresh oysters, you, like us, will be kicking yourself. And possibly U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, too. Salazar just announced that he is shutting down a historic oyster farm al ... More >>

Turkey Abuse: Watch The Animal Rights Video That Will Ruin Your Thanksgiving

Updated at the bottom with a statement from Butterball, which says the action caught on tape was under investigation. First posted at 12:03 p.m. Pretty soon animal rights activists will be decrying the suffering of corn -- all that slow grilling and hot butter. The humanity. For now, however, the ... More >>

Top 4 Weekend Food Events: Philippe's Haunted House Party, Taste of South Lake, Ventura Oysterfest Taste of Abbot Kinney

3rd Annual Halloween Party at Philippe the Original Members of Golden State Haunts, along with Valley Investigators of the Paranormal, will be on the lookout for the famed "Lady in White" in the upstairs "bordello" of the historic Philippe the Original restaurant. Join them for a night of spooky sto ... More >>

M&M-Colored Honey Makes French Beekeepers See Red

We all know that bees are attracted to colorful flowers -- but colorful candy shells that melt in your mouth, not in your hand? Bees are irritating normally sanguine French beekeepers because the insects are gathering sugar from a nearby M&M waste plant and coloring their honey in rainbow shades o ... More >>

Disgusting Animal Abuse Caught on Video: Ontario Livestock Workers Charged

Video from an undercover investigation of alleged animal abuse at a Southern California livestock operation was released today. A spokesman for the group Mercy For Animals described the footage to the Weekly as depicting "animals being kicked, beaten and stomped on" as well as "ill or injured anima ... More >>

Beef Experts Discover New Cut of Steak

If there was a Nobel prize for meat, the team of researchers at Oklahoma State University's Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center (FAPC) would probably be a shoe-in this year. The group has discovered an entirely new cut of beef they've named "The Vegas Strip Steak," which is being hail ... More >>

Dennis Hedgecock: The Oyster Is His World

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here. Dennis Hedgecock wants to breed a better oyster to feed the world. Since 99 percent of the biosphere's volume is sea water, it's time to put it to work. Oysters are a nearly ... More >>

Kardashian Sisters' Fur Peddling at Their DASH Stores Draws Ire of Animal Rights Activists

The Kardashian sisters can't escape the sour taste of haterade these days. First there was a movement to get Kim to pay more taxes (she saw a California rate of 10.3 percent in 2010 even though she made $12 million). Then there was the post-divorce-announcement boycott of all things Kim (and, theref ... More >>

Q & A With Beekeeper Brent Edelen: Where Honey Went Wrong, What "Wildflower" Often Really Means Industry Changes

Beekeeper Brent Edelengrampashoney.com​Brent Edelen, a sixth generation raw honey producer in Alamosa, Colorado, makes some of the best honeys we've ever tasted. Like grass-fed beef, you can literally taste the terroir in the honey that Edelen makes under the Grampa's Gourmet label. In part, ... More >>

Rancher Q & A: Veterinarian Lowell Novy On Humanely Raised Cattle, How Grass-fed Beef Is Like Wine The Ongoing Frozen Debate

After all of that Novy Ranches grass-fed eyeball farmers market talk, we had to call up the Northern California ranch's owner, Lowell Novy, a Northern California by way of Nebraska veterinarian turned cattle rancher. A mouthful? Sure. But a good one. Novy was more than happy to chat -- honestly -- ... More >>

U.S. Still a Dumping Ground for Crappy Honey, Study Finds

Flickr/Joelk75​ They're calling it "honey laundering." More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores is filtered to the point where it contains no pollen -- which would make it flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies, according to testing ... More >>

Save Bats Bees by Showing Your (Ingestible) Support

backwardsbeekeepers.comThe Yellow Carpet​Nothing against birds, but bats and bees -- key cogs in our food pollination wheel, among other things -- have had it rough the past few years with white nose syndrome and Colony Collapse Disorder. On the positive side, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servic ... More >>

Faux Shark Fin Soup: A Recipe From the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Courtesy of the Monterey Bay AquariumFaux shark fin soup.​Now that the California Shark Protection Act, a bill that would prohibit the sale, consumption and trade of shark's fin -- and with it shark fin soup -- sits on Governor Jerry Brown's desk, waiting for his approval (probably), here's a ... More >>

Cargill's Second Turkey Recall in Six Weeks

taleitalei/flickrTurkey burger.​ A turkey burger isn't sounding so good right now. Even if no immediate evidence suggests salmonella-laced ground gobbler has, as of this weekend, infiltrated California's stores, the Minnesota-based company Cargill Inc. has issued its second recall in six week ... More >>

Backwards Beekeepers, L.A.'s Bee Rescue Service

​ Modern talk of bees tends to dwell on their deficiencies more than their benefits. Colony Collapse Disorder. Fatal bee-sting allergies. Killer bees both Africanized and Saturday Night Live. But honey is a food that keeps indefinitely, much like the Metro trains that buzz incessantly on this ... More >>

Raw Milk Controversy Nothing New

Laurie AvocadoClosed Alta-Dena Drive Thru Dairy, Lincoln Heights​People holding signs supporting raw milk, others giving testimonials of how drinking it has benefited their health. Were these scenes from the Thursday downtown protest over the raid on Rawesome Foods?, no, they occurred in Janua ... More >>

Crying Over Spilt Milk: Rawesome Volunteer Speaks Out on Yesterday's Raid Protest Rally

Tambako/Flickr​More details are emerging about yesterday morning's raid on Rawesome, a members-only raw food collective whose owner was arrested and jailed for the heinous crime of peddling raw milk. Most absurd and appalling is the fact that the raid was the result of a year-long undercover o ... More >>

Double Take: Humane Society Partners with United Egg Producers for Chicken Welfare

Felicia FriesemaEggs from Kendor Farms at the Hollywood market.​ In a surprisingly unprecedented move, the nation's largest egg farming cooperative, representing, according to their website, "95% of of all the nation's egg-laying hens," has partnered with the Humane Society of the United State ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Judges Cochon 555's Traveling Pork and Wine Bacchanalia

Q & A With Amber Huffman: Bourbon Blunders, Derby Cocktails Cooking For Jess Jackson At His Kentucky Racehorse Farm

AHuffmanHuffman's Backyard View Yesterday (Literally)... Yeah, We're Jealous ​This weekend's Kentucky Derby may mark the beginning of summer mint julep season, but for Amber Huffman, the private chef at two Lexington, Kentucky thoroughbred racehorse farms, Saturday is all about wine. "Mint jul ... More >>

Price Fixing Lawsuit: Egg Cartel Not Giving Consumers A Break?

Several of the country's largest egg producers stand accused of participating in a scheme that drove up the wholesale price of eggs by 40%. And they did it under the guise of treating animals more humanely: By systematically killing off egg-laying hens, supposedly to increase cage space for the rema ... More >>

Project Fishmap, Monterey Bay Aquarium's Newest App: Almost as Much Fun as Angry Birds

​Here's something new to add to your phone if you're a seafood lover. No, not a bluefin tuna version of Angry Birds, although that would be kind of fun. Slightly more useful is Project FishMap, a new feature of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch app, which lets you tag any of more than ... More >>

Ash Cloud Over Europe Disrupts Travelers and Fish Industry

The airplanes over Europe may be lifting along with the volcanic ash cloud -- although perhaps not for long -- but the jammed airways have meant that not only travelers have been held up, but many products as well. Exports of Norwegian salmon and Icelandic fresh fish have been curtailed or halted, c ... More >>

LOVE TO LOBSTER, BABY

Brazilian Cattle Exporter Signs Pact with Greenpeace After Deforestation Report

Yesterday the Brazilian beef exporter Bertin reported that it had signed a pact with Greenpeace to refuse to buy cattle from deforested parts of the Amazon. Greenpeace claims that the Brazilian Amazon cattle industry is the largest driver of deforestaton in the world, responsible for 14% of the wor ... More >>

Small Farms Exempt from New Egg Safety Regulations

Ah, government bureaucracy. Since the discovery in the mid-1980s that table eggs contaminated with the bacteria Salmonella Enteritidis were making thousands of people sick, food regulators and lawmakers have been quibbling over how to address the problem. On July 9, they finally did something about ... More >>

Dairy Crisis Sends 101,000 Cows To Slaughterhouse

If lush, green, rolling hillsides dotted with healthy cows chomping on grasses seems like some kind of pastoral fantasy, the reality is turning into a nightmare for California dairy farmers.

Battle of the Literary Sexes

Gills Gone Wild: Why Free-Swimming Salmon Is Best

Tastes great, less environmentally chilling

The Last Egg Man

Defending his poultry farm, Ken Arno faces off against the Valley’s king of rezoning

Swine Song

Greg Kotis, on his agri-eco farce, Pig Farm

Mad Politicians' Disease

Democrats’ mooing is what’s wrong with this race for governor

The Shrimp Factor

Did disappearing mangrove forests contribute to the tsunami’s severity?

Where’s the Beef?

Rustling makes a comeback in California