By Michael Pollan

Published: April 22, 2007
Source: NYTimes

 

A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?

vegan choices enriching actress' life
By Zenaida Serrano
Advertiser Staff Writer
Source:  The Honolulu Advertiser 

The simplest things make actress Alicia Silverstone "feel so happy," she said, such as picking lemons from a tree in her back yard, not buying leather and using all-natural cleaning products.

Such little acts can change the world, Silverstone told a crowd of nearly 500 last week at Hawaiian Mission Academy.

"If everyone of us just made more of an effort to recycle, to reuse, to eat organic foods, to heal ourselves, if everyone in this room did that, imagine the domino effect," said Silverstone, who gave an hourlong presentation as a guest speaker of the Vegetarian Society of Hawai'i.

Looking slim in her faded denim jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, the Los Angeles native shared the benefits of going vegan — a diet and lifestyle that excludes all animals and animal products.

 

mystery of the dying bees
by Benjamin Lester
Source: Cosmos Online

 

Something mysterious is killing honey bees, and even as billions are dropping dead across North America, researchers are scrambling to find answers and save one of the most important crop pollinators on Earth.

The almond trees are blooming and the bees are dying, and nobody knows why. All up and down California's vast San Joaquin Valley, nearly 2,500 square kilometres of small nut trees arranged in laser-straight rows are shaking off the cobwebs of winter. They're gearing up once again to produce nearly half a billion kilograms of nuts, worth US$3 billion to the U.S. economy.

The trees cannot produce the bounty on their own, however. They need bees - a million hives worth - trucked in from nearly forty U.S. states to move pollen from one tree to another, fertilising the blooms in the largest managed pollination event on Earth.

But even as the beekeepers reap record fees for renting their hives, their livelihood is now threatened by the largest loss of honey bees in the history of the industry.