24 September 2018

1. Italy may actually be realising the magnitude of the threat Xylella poses to its olives and beyond. (In other news, the Five Star Movement may need to get it’s story straight.)
2. No such luck with big beef in the USA, as Cargill recalls 60 tons of potentially contaminated ground meat. Here’s the official account and here’s the activist view, in case you want some colour.
3. Calories are not in short supply, at least taken globally. What about the other nutrients? asks the press release of an interesting meta-study.
4. I’ve stayed out of the Brexit farrago almost completely, but Jay Rayner’s piece in The Guardian – Food and Brexit: will our cupboards be bare? – forces me to come out. The one good thing I can see in Brexit is the opportunity for the UK to have a sensible agricultural policy, an opportunity I am utterly convinced will be squandered.
5. Europe Now (see what I did there?) has an entire recent issue on Food, Food Systems and Agriculture, packed with interesting reading. From it, I want to share Superfood or Dangerous Drug? Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate in the Late 17th Century, but there’s lots more to gorge on.
6. Speaking of which, as a follow up to the prison food podcast, I wrote a thing about last meals.