The Agrifood Atlas warns that the monopolising of the food chain by “ever-fewer-ever-larger” corporations has far reaching consequences for our food system. The Agrifood Atlas compiled by the Heinrich Böll Foundation [https://www.boell.de/en], the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation [https://www.rosalux.de/en/] and Friends of the Earth Europe [http://www.foeeurope.org/] stresses the fact that agrifood corporations foster industrialisation along the entire
Continue reading...
Cinnamon has been known since ancient times. It received much attention in China as is witnessed by its entry in the ancient books on Chinese botanical medicine (dated ~2700 AD), attributed to the mythical Chinese sovereign Shennong. In Ayurveda, the Hindu health doctrine from India, cinnamon is recommended for the treatment of diabetes and
Continue reading...
Peggy Orenstein is a regular holidaymaker in Hawaii. For several decades she returned, year after year, to swim at the same bare-bones beach of Big Island. Her recent article in the New York Times is particularly surprising and worrying: … At first I thought it was my imagination, but this summer there was no denying
Continue reading...
… This information will come in handy for those of us following the latest recommendation from the United Nations: Consume more insects … In fact, some two billion people eat a wide variety of insects regularly, both cooked and raw; only in Western countries does the practice retain an “ick” factor among the masses [Holland 2013]… On the one
Continue reading...
… he (the veterinarian) warned, “these cats back here are radioactive.” He meant that literally. The previous day, all five animals received carefully titrated doses of radioactive iodine, designed to destroy the overactive cells that had proliferated in their thyroid glands and flooded their bodies with hormones. These cats are among the millions suffering from hyperthyroidism, one
Continue reading...
Glyphosate has recently been the subject of a number of articles in newspapers and magazines. Three of them in particular caught my attention: “Glyphosate presence in honey raises concerns” in the Canadian weekly The Western Producer [Arnason, 09.03.2017], “Tribunal Monsanto: la firme américaine reconnue coupable d’atteinte aux droits humains (US firm found guilty of human
Continue reading...
What is wrong with the ubiquitous and attractive supermarket tomatoes? For many city dwellers, the delicious taste of a succulent garden tomato is little more than a distant memory. The standard grocery varieties have grown larger and blander. Indeed, the decline in flavour quality of the modern commercial tomato compared to heirloom varieties is
Continue reading...
Les perturbateurs endocriniens, une menace pour le développement du cerveau (Endocrine disrupters, a threat to brain development) is the striking title of an article by Ludmilla Terres that was published in the French newspaper Le Monde, on March 7th this year. I often ask myself whether exposure to chemical compounds affects our brain development; whether
Continue reading...
The European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) population, still very abundant in French Alsace as late as the 1960s, has been reduced to some 450 individuals today. What is the way of life of this small rodent? Why is its habitat collapsing? What challenges are to be faced to preserve Alsatian large hamster populations? The main reason
Continue reading...