Food Politics

My interview with Christie Keith about Pet Food Politics has just been posted on the Pet Connection blog site.  Pet Connection is the pet care and everything else website that played such an important role in tracking the events of the 2007 pet food recalls.  Christie Keith writes regularly for Pet Connection but I first came across her work as the exceptionally thoughtful pet columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.  This is a first for me: the interview is a verbatim transcript of a long telephone conversation.  The conversation was a lot of fun, but also instructive; it changed my thinking about some issues regarding pet food labeling.  Enjoy!

It’s a whole new media world out there and I can’t say I’m adjusting to it easily. On Wednesday this week, a couple of techies came to my office with a laptop at which I stared while questions emerged from it.  The result?  It’s on the website of Meet the Bloggers.  They also seem to have posted parts of the interview on YouTube here and also here.   Electronically challenged as I am, this does take some getting used to.  But enjoy!

I’ve just discovered my March 12 interview with Adriana Velez on www.foodbuzz.com and her review of What to Eat. Thanks Adriana!

I’ve just been interviewed by HS (Homeland Security) Daily Wire about food safety in a globalized economy.  The interviewer started off asking about the implications of mature capitalism so we were at it right away.  I’m not sure what this group is, but the interview was fun to do.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I’m working on a couple of books about pet food. The first, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine, comes out in September from University of California Press (no info there yet, but soon, hopefully). After the Pet Expo in San Diego, I was interviewed by Pet Connection about this book and the next one, What Pets Eat, which I’m doing with Malden Nesheim for Harcourt, and which won’t be out for years.

In this week’s “Let’s Ask Marion,” Eating Liberally’s kat wants to know what I thought about the recent piece in the New York Times about the fat acceptance movement. Her questions are always exceptionally thoughtful. My answers try to be. Enjoy!

My interview with an avatar named Jimbo Hoyer on Second Life has just been posted. This was kind of an out-of-body experience for me. I like the avatar that someone created for me.  It (she?) is sort of younger, thinner version with a great figure.  Anyway, their (our?) interview covers a variety of food issues. Enjoy!

My Eating Liberally question this week is about whether is makes sense to put cartoons on vegetable packages to encourage kids to eat more healthfully. I think not, of course, but here’s Disney doing just that. Is this a reasonable strategy? Weigh in please.

An Israeli colleague tells me that What to Eat is out in a Hebrew edition. I haven’t seen it, but he knows this because he reads Haaretz. I can’t read the article, but I had a great time with the interviewer, Shahar Smooha, and, if the cartoon (!) is any indication, it must be a lively story. Translations welcome!

My article, “Eating Made Simple,” appears in the September issue of Scientific American along with a podcast. Enjoy! The journal’s website also has an excerpt from What to Eat–Chapter 5 on the produce section: “Genetically Modified, Irradiated, and Politicized.” Enjoy that too!