Crop Production

What's in Season at the Farmers Market: GMO Blues First Summer Corn

When you Google Monsanto, the website link has both the company's name and its slogan -- A Sustainable Agriculture Company. It's a website that works very hard from the first click to reframe the conversation around the most controversial issue in worldwide agriculture. Perhaps with good reason. ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Winter Citrus Update

There has been a collective holding of the breath among California citrus growers following the hard frost we experienced a couple of weeks ago. Frost damage to leafy greens and tender vegetables is immediately apparent, but citrus frost damage is disguised and delayed. It's a nail biting waiting ... More >>

Arsenic Found in Organic Brown Rice Syrup Baby Formula

Arsenic is totally bad for you. Even if it doesn't kill you a la the classic "old lace" cocktail, small amounts have been associated with raising the risk for cancer and heart disease. Chronic arsenic ingestion in the young appears to result in dumb children (low IQ and "poor intellectual function") ... More >>

Sugar vs. High Fructose Corn Syrup: Court Battle Begins

Guzzle & NoshA little sugar in your bowl?​This morning in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom, a bitter legal battle begins over identity. In one corner, a coalition of table sugar producers complaining about false advertising and attempted "food identity theft." In the other, high fructose corn ... More >>

Best New Semi-Local Whole Wheat Flour: Community Grains' Winter Wheat

JgarbeeCalifornia Grown And Milled Whole Wheat​You might say Community Grains has a now-typical California restaurant-to-home-kitchen story, one most often recounted whenever Nancy Silverton, Campanile and La Brea Bakery wind up in the same sentence. The small Woodland-based mill also sprang u ... More >>

Book Review: Tomatoland , A Tale Of Tasteless Tomatoes, Toxic Chemicals And Slavery

​Forewarning: If you ever want to buy a grocery store tomato again, you should not read this review. Tomatoland by Barry Estrabrook is a contrasting story of McMansions and crumbling shacks, the bright red, beauty pageant-worthy orbs on your $8 Angus burger versus the fruit sprayed with so ma ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: First Corn

Felicia FriesemaFirst season's corn at Yasukochi Family Farms​ Corn is the stuff of fortunes, or lack thereof, depending on your point of view. It's one of the few food commodities (corn futures, actually) that the stock markets still pay close attention to, and by the way, it's rising like m ... More >>

Erika Podest: The Future of Weather

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: First Cherries of the Season

Amy ScattergoodEarly cherries from Murray Family Farms​ The earliest hint that the seasons are starting to switch from spring to summer is the baskets, bowls, and piles of early sweet and sour cherries on local market tables. We started watching the calendar when the artichokes showed up. On ... More >>

Scientists Crack Genetic Code for World's Best Cacao

GastronomyCacao Sampaka, Madrid​An international team of scientists has sequenced the genome for criollo, a cacao variety that reportedly produces some of the best chocolate in the world. The results, published in the latest issue of Nature Genetics, could eventually lead to new and improved v ... More >>

The Birth of Coffee

SushiMasters Competition in Little Tokyo This Sunday: Chefs With Knives A Food and Sake Festival Afterwards

If you should find yourself in downtown's Little Tokyo this Sunday afternoon, trolling for zuke maguro or morikomi or hamachi sashimi or iwashi sushi, say, you might do well to stop by the Artani/Japan America Theatre before you down too many cups of sake. There you will find, mid-afternoon, the fin ... More >>

Emerald Beaut Plums: Late Summer Plums Hit the Fruits Stands

Photo credit: Todd Porter​Emerald Beaut Plums will be showing up at farmers markets this weekend. Many of us have waited long and patiently for this green plum to hit the stands, and at least one farmer, Annie from Sweet Tree Farms, has finally deemed her crop ripe and sent crews up the ladde ... More >>

Fuel's Gold

While Bush and Schwarzenegger rush to market biofuels, the fact is that not all ethanol is created equally.

Dirty Prices

Governor and Barbara Boxer push ethanol

Making Sense

Jonathan Demme presents Haitian crusader Jean Dominique

Money Fields

End of the line for L.A. River park

River Affront

L.A. River boosters try to stop federal money for industrial project