P i s t a c h i o

And tasty, too, apparently, but numbers are dwindling.

From the shores of Budleigh Salterton, England, today.

Marine experts believe thousands of starfish have washed up on the beach due to high tides and storms.

via Matt Cardy, Getty Images

Despite the atrocities of our culture’s animal husbandry, I’ll never give up meat.

More and more, I’m satisfied with very little of it. Also, frankly, I can’t always afford to buy organic or naturally raised. Better food remains the domain of fuller wallets than mine. But that’s another issue for another day.

Forget organic and naturally raised, says author Jonathan Safran Foer [Everything Is Illuminated], whose new book Eating Animals was released this week.

In this Q&A by Sarah Boesveld, he says:

Even if you want to be an ethical omnivore or a selective omnivore, just given the realities of farming, it means you’re going to eat vegetarian almost all the time.

I’m having trouble thinking of myself as unethical, but I’ll own up to thinking that the best efforts of the local food movement, microfarming and CSAs are still a drop in the bucket and not really impacting factory farming in any real way.

Which is not to say microfarming and all the related efforts around it are for naught. Quite the opposite. It’s just that, when I hear complaints about factory farming followed by one form or other of boycotting, I think, “There’s got to be a better way.”

When Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle [1906], his exposé of the Chicago meat industry, it led to historic reform. His book was responsible for the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, including better working conditions for workers.

I want to hear more about reform for large scale operations. Is Canada as bound to nepotistic relationships among government agencies to protect corporate profits as is the case in the U.S. [See Food, Inc.], or are we more likely to succeed in changing food production on a grand scale?

Image via Tiny Evil Hog | via Burstoid

… transparency.

It seems to be in the air right now.

Or should I say the sea?

A great visual sees through 50 years of fishing, thanks to  Good Magazine.

Leave it to Bittman to clear things up so eloquently.

Stopping for a quick cup at the new Tim’s in my hood, I noticed their new recycle bins.

They’ve designated where cups can go and where lids can go, which I hope will go a long way toward quelling the kerfuffle. A gargantuan volume of take-out coffee cups is messing up the great progress we’re making on keeping the city’s solid waste under control.

The core issue concerns the cups’ plastic coating. Our processing can’t accommodate their slower rate of breaking down compared with other waste in their category.

Today’s Globe reports that the deadline For Tim’s conversion to a greener cup might be delayed.

Some jaw-dropper stats from the report: 

• 1 million: Estimated takeout coffee cups generated in Toronto each day
• 152,858: Number that leave the city
• 336,883: Number brought in
• 1,184,025: Net daily that end up in Toronto’s waste
• 357,575,550: Annual total
• 4,291 tonnes a year: Weight of those cups
• 715 tonnes a year: Weight of their plastic lids

Source: Report for city by Entec Consultng Ltd., obtained by The Globe and Mail