Butchers: Sex Symbols of the Food World

It's a cheap, relatively healthy meat option for the poor: Josh Ozersky

(NEWSER) - When Congress lifted the ban on funding horse meat inspections , no one exactly cheered, because Americans find the idea of eating horse meat “gross.” But maybe it’s time to get over “our national revulsion” against the stuff, writes Josh Ozersky in Time . For one thing, since horse meat is so unpopular, it would be cheaper than most other meat—meaning that “the poorest Americans could eat fresh meat more frequently." More»

New year, new trends

(NEWSER) - If your New Year's Resolution is to "be more adventurous," this is the list for you. Writing for Time , Josh Ozersky lays out the five foods that he predicts will be hot in 2012, while admitting that these forecasts are typically "about as reliable as the photos on a Latvian dating site." That's because food writers consistently overestimate how much Americans will glom on to ethnic foods—Peruvian food hasn't exactly taken the country by storm, he notes. But "that doesn’t mean that things aren’t changing," writes Ozersky, who presents a pretty exotic list:

1. Banh Mi: If you want to seem adventurous without actually having to be adventurous, these Vietnamese sandwiches (pronounced bon-mee) are for you. They're basically "crispy French bread filled with fresh, bright, firm vegetables, hot sauce, and what usually looks like six different kinds of pork."

A butcher, hunter, and rancher discuss the ethics of eating animals

(NEWSER) - For long stretches of their lives, Nicolette Niman, Tovar Cerulli and Joshua Applestone were all vegetarians or vegans. Now, they’re a rancher, a hunter, and a butcher, respectively, who “firmly believe food from animals can be healthful, environmentally appropriate, and ethical,” they write in the Atlantic . Their stories:

• Nicolette: She became vegan “after hearing that beef was deforesting the Amazon,” but eventually “learned that animals were essential to sustainable farms.” They increase soil fertility and convert otherwise inedible vegetation and uncultivated land into food.
• Tovar: He became a vegan after listening to Buddhist teachings, but eventually “realized that all food has its costs. From habitat destruction to combines that inadvertently mince rabbits … crop production is far from harmless.” What matters, he decided, “wasn’t what we ate, but how that food came to our plates.”
• Joshua: He was a vegetarian until he met his wife and opened a meat company. “Once I saw how the meat we were selling had been raised, and met the farmers who were striving to raise animals sustainably … I realized I didn’t have a problem with meat. I had a problem with the inhumane practices of the commercial meat industry."

Congress lifts ban on funding horse meat inspections

(NEWSER) - When Congress passed a spending bill earlier this month to keep the government from shutting down, it quietly lifted a funding ban on horse meat inspections—meaning horses can once again be butchered in the US for human consumption, and slaughterhouses could open within 30 to 90 days. The US has no outright ban on horse slaughter, although two states do ban it and many others regulate the sale of horse meat, but funding for horse meat inspections was cut off in 2006. Congress did not allocate new money to pay for inspections, meaning the USDA would have to find the money within its own struggling budget. More»

Learn to appreciate food, wine, and bread in style

(NEWSER) - There's no better time than autumn or winter, the harvest seasons, for foodies to embark on a luxurious gastronomic adventure. Consider these premier gourmet trips, rounded up by the Wall Street Journal :

• Wine: Spend 3 days refining your palate as you learn to taste, select, and pair top wines at the annual Wine Geek 101 event at Blackberry Farm , nestled in the foothills of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains. $1,200 per person.