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A reporter at Bloomberg dropped a line with this story about diet pills in India. What with Indians ballooning (as we all are) there's something of a demand for weight-loss remedies.

The remedies that make sense (eat less, be a little more physically active, don't eat processed food, enjoy fresh food more) aren't terribly popular. Generating far more interest are the solutions that let you carry on eating unhealthily, but where you don't have to bother trying too hard. The chemical companies have been lining up to provide something like this, a magic regulator of free will that can help take the edge off our food cravings.

Through the cunning use of cannabis, specifically the discovery of how to switch off that part of the brain that makes you crave Mars bars when you're high, the drug giant Sanofi-Aventis has hit on a billion dollar weight-loss drug: Acompli. ... read more »

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Posted on 5 April, 2008 - 09:58

We recently stumped up not-very-much money to subscribe to Vanity Fair, and it's a subscription we're likely to keep, especially now that we're practiced in ignoring the large wodge of adverts for cosmetics and high fashion that fill out the space between articles.

This month's issue is "The Green Issue". Again, ignoring Madonna on the front cover, there's some fine journalism to be found. In particular, there's a very good exposé of Monsanto's seedy practices. (An unintentional pun but worth keeping, I feel.)

Check it out here. ... read more »

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Posted on 5 April, 2008 - 13:17

Anirvan writes with this story from the Santa Cruz Indymedia Center. Lakeside Organics in Watsonville California is in the business of producing food that kisses the earth. But the company's not above beating the poor to produce it. Stories like this are more common than one might think. It's are a reminder that environmentally friendly needn't mean socially just, and that it's going to take more than a label to bring about the social changes we so desperately need around our ... read more »

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Posted on 5 April, 2008 - 16:15

Food First, the Institute at which I'm a Fellow in Oakland, California, has come out with some fine material over the past week. First, they've put out a fantastic take-down of biofuels (more properly agrofuels), in a report with the perfect title: When Renewable Isn't Sustainable.

They've also got this handy list of food riots, to which we can add the travails in Argentina (thanks to Mary Robertson for sending news about this). I'll be writing about the other omission from this list in the next post: rice riots. ... read more »

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Posted on 5 April, 2008 - 22:49

The price of rice recently increased by 30% in a single day. But not everywhere. Places affected were in South East Asia, places like the Philippines and Indonesia, home to a new and desperate phenomenon rice suicides.

East Asia hasn't, however, been affected. In China, the prices are barely up at all, and they're lower than last year. This compares to a 200% increase in the Philippines over the same period. South Korea is opening its grain reserves to keep prices down. Japan isn't suffering at all, by the sound of things. ... read more »

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Posted on 5 April, 2008 - 23:20