How to Shop, and Save, Green

Try it before worrying that you'll die of a cheese craving

(NEWSER) - Instead of a trendy juice cleanse to start the New Year, Heather Wood Rudúlph went with a different detox diet: going vegan for a month. She shares seven lessons she learned from the experience in Sirens Magazine :

• She can cook: And so can you. Forced to stop making your staple chicken casserole over and over, you discover the joys of “culinary creativity.”
• Skip the colonic and eat veggies instead: “Eating massive portions of leafy vegetables and whole grains” led to “that ‘clean’ feeling" within just a couple of days.
• You never know what you’re going to miss: In Rudúlph’s case, she craved fish and yogurt but never meat, other dairy, or eggs.

Food dating is utterly unregulated, and unreliable

(NEWSER) - Forget that date on the meat you bought last week; if it looks good and smells good, you can probably just eat it. Expiration dates are just about meaningless, argues Nadia Arumugam on Slate , because food’s deterioration has a lot more to do with how it’s stored than for how long. Manufacturers tend to date their products assuming the laziest, dumbest possible consumers are buying them, according to one food scientist. More»

(NEWSER) - A neurotic fixation on eating only healthy food is the latest eating disorder trend, reports the Guardian. Orthorexia nervosa affects both men and women. Othorexics are so obsessed with "pure" foods that they can become malnourished, say experts. They tend to be extremely proud of their "virtuous" behavior, though constantly refining and restricting their diet can be so stressful it interferes with personal relationships. More»

New Book tells how to eat healthier, cheaper, and greener

(NEWSER) - Mark Bittman is a unique voice in American food writing, an “anti-foodies’ foodie” who rejects both the “chefolatry” of gourmet mags and Rachel Ray-style pandering, writes Laura Miller in Salon. His new book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, is both exceedingly ambitious—it purports to offer a diet that’s healthier, more environmentally conscious, and cheaper—and downright practical. More»

Old-fashioned agribusiness has its perks

(NEWSER) - Don’t believe the hype about organic food, writes Abigail Haddad in the American. While foodies and environmentalists may croon over produce grown locally or on small farms, the truth is that small farms aren’t very efficient, locally grown produce doesn’t help the environment, and organic food is produced much the same way as plain ‘ol food. More»