Food can’t escape politics, as some members of the Park Slope Food Co-Op are calling for a boycott of Israeli-made foods, butting heads with the anti-boycott “More Hummus Please” group of pro-Israel members: (full story)
“I’d turn vegan for you”, “I think we’d grow a great organic garden together”, and other fool-proof lines for hitting on a foodie: (full story)
Wal-Mart has announced plans to open 13 smaller-format “Neighborhood Market” stores in California this year and next; averaging 42,000 square feet, these will compete with existing stores already fighting for market share. Wal-Mart has the resources to drive local shops out of business by temporarily undercutting prices, which can result in a net job loss for communities and has caused widespread opposition to their stores across California: (full story)
A new study shows that higher levels of vitamin D–not calcium–are tied to fewer stress fractures in young women; the participants who got lots of vitamin D through their diet and supplements were half as likely to suffer a stress fracture as those who didn’t get much: (full story)
Actor Wendell Pierce of HBO’s “Treme” & “The Wire” has opened Sterling Express, the first in a convenience store chain that will sell fresh produce and salads in addition to the usual chips and sodas; he’ll soon open a grocery store called Sterling Farms, the first of several in New Orleans’s low-income neighborhoods, where supermarkets are scarce: (full story)
A Food Safety News investigation revealed that one-third of America’s honey supply is probably smuggled in from China and could be tainted with the antibioticChloramphenicol used by Chinese beekeepers to stave off a bacterial infection that threatened to cripple the country’s honey industry in the late 90s; the drug is outlawed in the U.S.: (full story)