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Tracie McMillan grew up on Tuna Helper and Ortega Taco Dinners and was raised to believe that farm-fresh, home-cooked food was for...

There are dozens if not hundreds of organizations across the U.S. working to improve the quality of cafeteria food at public schools. But...

After Novella Carpenter’s critically acclaimed memoir Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer came out, she and friend Willow...

If you're paying attention to the urban agriculture scene in this country, you've no doubt read about Detroit—how its residents are...

When he was seven years old, Malik Yakini, inspired by his grandfather, planted his own backyard garden in Detroit, seeding it with...

Home economics, which was a fixture in secondary schools throughout the 1950s and 1960s, has all but vanished today, but there is a steady rallying cry from pediatricians, nutrition educators, and food justice activists to bring it back. Helen Zoe Veit, an assistant professor of history at Michigan State, recently wrote an impassioned Op-Ed in the New York Times in which she championed home ec and asked, “What if the government put the tools of obesity prevention in the hands

When I heard Cory Carman speak at Ecotrust's food hub conference last spring, I knew I had to write about her. Her story, of taking over her family's ranch out in eastern Oregon and converting it to a 100% grass-fed operation, interested me for at least three reasons. First, ever since reading Michael Pollan's the Omnivore's Dilemma , I've been convinced of the environmental and nutritional superiority of grass-finished beef. (That is, beef that hasn't been fed corn for the

When you hear the words Slow Food , do you conjure up a multi-course locavore dinner with wine pairings?  If so, think again. Over the...

When I travel, one of the first things I do is seek out a local coffee shop. It must have character and a sense of place, of course. But...

When you hear the words Slow Food , do you conjure up a multi-course locavore dinner with wine pairings?  If so, think again. Over the...

This year, the Portland Pie Off was practically in my own backyard—the lovely Laurelhurst Park. How could I resist? Read more about it here, at T: Travel 's the Moment. A pie judge surveys the contestants at Portland’s fifth annual Pie Off. [Photo: Don McIntosh] Trying to locate this year’s fifth annual Pie Off in Laurelhurst Park in Portland, Ore., was like a sketch from the TV show “Portlandia”: first you had to pass by what was billed (in chalk on the asphalt path) as an

The surprise darling of the Community Food Security Coalition conference last May was a little-known city councilman from Cleveland. He...

Don't miss my latest interview with a food justice leader : FoodCorps program director (and organic vegetable farmer) Debra Eschmeyer....

I've been writing about a handful of forward-looking organizations and green trends: the awesome nonprofit Wholesome Wave (which doubles...

For eco-minded eaters — not to mention radiation alarmists — fish is a quandary these days. Much of the seafood served in American restaurants is imported, caught using methods that endanger other animals or farmed unsustainably. But a few chefs around the country are trying to turn the tide with local, eco-conscious menus. Tataki in San Francisco Tataki in San Francisco offers local catches like Monterey Bay sardines, horse mackerel from California and wild salmon, when it’

Last summer, I had a great adventure in the coastal forests that hug the Oregon Coast. I went on an early-morning foraging quest with chef Matt Lightner (from Portland's much-heralded Castagna restaurant) and his foraging mentor Lars Norgren. Tall with a shock of white hair, Lars reminded me of my favorite college English professor—garrulous, opinionated, and brimming with an infectious curiosity for the world. Only instead of a world populated by characters from the novels

When I travel, I often judge a city by its street food: the bratwurst in Zurich (served on a golden Bürli roll and slathered with...

Every Saturday on a sleepy side street in the industrial neighborhood of West Oakland you’ll see an unlikely site: a farm stand bursting...

One of my New Year's resolutions (in addition to learning how to darn socks and taking a CPR class) was to write more regularly for my...