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Food

Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to Food

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  • Stuffed and Starved: As Food Riots Break Out Across the Globe, Raj Patel Details "The Hidden Battle for the World Food System"

    Global food prices have risen dramatically, adding a new level of danger to the crisis of world hunger. In Africa, food riots have swept across the continent, with recent protests in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Senegal. In most of West Africa, the price of food has risen by 50 percent — in Sierra Leone, 300 percent. In the United States there has been a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals...
    Apr 08, 2008 | Story

  • Record Number of Food Stamp Recipients Projected

    Government officials are projecting the number of Americans receiving food stamps will reach a record twenty-eight million later this year. Over the past year, more than forty states saw the number of food stamp recipients rise. A ten percent jump in food stamp recipients was recorded in six states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island. In West Virginia, one-in-six residents now receive food stamps. We speak with Jim...
    Apr 02, 2008 | Story

  • Anti-Epileptics, Sex Hormones, Mood Stabilizers, Antibiotics Among Array of Pharmaceuticals in US Water Supply

    Anti-epileptics were found in the drinking water of Southern California; a sex hormone was found in San Francisco’s water; three medications and an antibiotic were found in the water supply of Tucson, Arizona; and a mood stabilizer was found in the water of New Jersey. And that’s just to name a few. An exhaustive five-month investigation by Associated Press has found the drinking water in at least twenty-four major American cities...
    Mar 24, 2008 | Story

  • Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice

    Maude Barlow is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project. Barlow is author of the new book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. [includes rush transcript]
    Feb 27, 2008 | Story

  • "Chocolate's Bittersweet Economy": Cocoa Industry Accused of Greed, Neglect for Labor Practices in Ivory Coast

    On Valentine’s Day, we look into two of the luxury industries that have come to expect huge profits on this hyper-consumerized occasion. We begin with chocolate. A scathing new report by veteran journalist and author Christian Parenti says hardly any progress has been made in the cocoa industry’s pledges to address child labor. We host a debate between Parenti and William Guyton, president of the World Cocoa Foundation. [includes rush...
    Feb 14, 2008 | Story

  • Theo Chocolate Founder, CEO Joe Whinney on Fair Trade Cocoa

    We speak to Joe Whinney, founder and CEO of Theo Chocolate, which describes itself as the only roaster of organic cocoa beans and the first roaster of Fair Trade certified cocoa beans in the United States. [includes rush transcript]
    Feb 14, 2008 | Story

  • In Defense of Food: Author, Journalist Michael Pollan on Nutrition, Food Science and the American Diet

    Acclaimed author and journalist Michael Pollan argues that what most Americans are consuming today is not food but "edible food-like substances." His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. His latest book, just published, is called In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. [includes rush transcript]
    Feb 13, 2008 | Story

  • Costa Rican Banana Growers Form Fair Trade Cooperative

    Yocser Carranza Godoy, president of the worker-controlled cooperative called Coopetrabasur and the cooperative’s attorney Carlos Eugenio Vargas join us in New York to discuss the banana cooperative. [includes rush transcript]
    Oct 29, 2007 | Story

  • The Bottled Water Lie: As Soft Drink Giant Admits Product is Tap Water, New Scrutiny Falls on the Economic and Environmental Costs of a Billion Dollar Industry

    The soft drink giant Pepsi has been forced to make an embarrassing admission — its best-selling Aquafina bottled water is nothing more than tap water. Pepsi has agreed to change its label under pressure from the advocacy group Corporate Accountability International (CAI) which has been leading an increasingly successful campaign against bottled water. We look at the economic and environmental costs of the bottled water industry with CAI’s...
    Aug 01, 2007 | Story

  • Stockton, California City Council Reverses Water Privatization It Passed Over Widespread Local Opposition

    We end with a major victory for the opponents of water privatization. In 2003, the City Council of Stockton, California ignored overwhelming public opposition to approve a $600 million dollar, 20-year water privatization agreement. The deal gave a multinational consortium full control over the city’s water, sewage, and stormwater systems. But two weeks the council reversed the position and voted unanimously to resume control of its water...
    Aug 01, 2007 | Story