Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong. Photo by NIGEL TREBLIN/AFP/Getty Images If you fear genetically modified food, you may have Mark Lynas to thank. By his own reckoning, British environmentalist helped spur the anti-GMO movement in the mid-‘90s, arguing as recently at 2008 that big corporations’ selfish greed would threaten the health of both people and the Earth. Torie Bosch is the editor of Future Tense, a project of Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State that looks at the implications of new technologies. But Lynas has changed his mind—and he’s not being quiet about it. I want to start with some apologies. As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. So I guess you’ll be wondering—what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? I can’t think of another environmentalist.
Farmer's Fight With Monsanto Reaches The Supreme Court : The Salt hide captionVernon Hugh Bowman lives outside the small town of Sandborn, Ind. Dan Charles/NPR This week, the Supreme Court will take up a classic David-and-Goliath case. On one side, there's a 75-year-old farmer in Indiana named Vernon Hugh Bowman; on the other, the agribusiness giant Monsanto. The farmer is fighting the long reach of Monsanto's patents on seeds — but he's up against more than just Monsanto. Bowman also is battling a historic shift that's transformed the nation's seed business over the past 20 years. Despite all that, Bowman seems remarkably cheerful about his situation. Bowman is leaning back in an easy chair, where he says he also sleeps at night. Out back, there's an array of old farm equipment collected during decades of growing corn and soybeans. Bowman is wearing a Monsanto hat. "It made things so much simpler and better. hide captionBowman bought ordinary soybeans from this small grain elevator and used them for seed. Those late-season soybeans are risky.
Money Replaces Willpower In Programs Promoting Weight Loss : Shots - Health News Hide caption Peggy Renzi (middle) talks with her teammates Erika Hersey (left) and Erica Webster. The three are part of a team of nurses in the Bowie Health Center emergency room in Bowie, Md., who are working together to lose weight. Gabriella Demczuk /NPR Hide caption Teammates (from left) Erica Webster, Peggy Renzi, Erika Hersey, Quan Harper and Nyuma Harrison entered a national weight loss contest in hopes of winning $10,000. Hide caption Nyuma Harrison photographs the groceries she purchased. Sticking to a diet is a challenge for many people, but starting next year, Americans may have an even bigger, financial incentive to keep their weight in check. Some employers, inspired in part by the success of shows like The Biggest Loser, are already designing weight-loss programs that use money to succeed where willpower has failed. For Peggy Renzi and her colleagues at Bowie Health Center in Bowie, Md., the war against weight is waged in the emergency room where they work.
In Many Families, Exercise Is By Appointment Only : Shots - Health News hide captionHenry Condes, 7, practices shooting a basketball. His mother, Yvonne, spends most afternoons ferrying her two boys from one sporting activity to another. David Gilkey/NPR Henry Condes, 7, practices shooting a basketball. Most families know that their kids need to exercise. Take Yvonne Condes of Los Angeles: It falls on her, like many parents across the country, to make sure her kids get enough exercise every day. On a typical day, Condes picks up her two boys — Alec, 9, and Henry, 7 — from school then begins her daily trek to sports practices. And, because Condes lives in Los Angeles where traffic is a huge problem, shuttling her kids back and forth can take five minutes or 25. Condes is a runner and recognizes the importance of daily exercise. As for just going outside to play in the neighborhood, well, that's not really an option, she says. "My younger son just started to ride his bike a lot. hide captionYvonne Condes helps her son Alec get ready for baseball practice.
In A Grain Of Golden Rice, A World Of Controversy Over GMO Foods : The Salt hide captionGenetically modified to be enriched with beta-carotene, golden rice grains (left) are a deep yellow. At right, white rice grains. Isagani Serrano/International Rice Research Institute Genetically modified to be enriched with beta-carotene, golden rice grains (left) are a deep yellow. At right, white rice grains. There's a kind of rice growing in some test plots in the Philippines that's unlike any rice ever seen before. Millions of people in Asia and Africa don't get enough of this vital nutrient, so this rice has become the symbol of an idea: that genetically engineered crops can be a tool to improve the lives of the poor. It's a statement that rouses emotions and sets off fierce arguments. But before we get to that debate, and the role that golden rice plays in it, let's travel back in time to golden rice's origins. It began with a conversation in 1984. The science of biotechnology was in its infancy at this point. They went around the room. "Yellow endosperm," said Jennings.
Why we love to run "Daddy, where are you going?" my son asked me recently as I was lacing up my running shoes on a cold, wet Sunday morning. "Running," I said. "Why?" he asked. He's only three. The truth is, just before you run is the worst possible moment to try to explain to someone, or even to yourself, why you run. Often people say to me they can run if they're chasing a ball, but to just run, nothing else, just one foot in front of the other, well, they find it too boring. Of course, some people run to lose weight, or to get fit, and these are great reasons. But for many of those two million runners, the real reason we head out to pound the roads until our legs hurt is more intangible than weight loss or fitness. Many runners become obsessed with times. A runner I know last year trained with intense dedication with the goal of running a marathon in less than three hours. "I'm actually glad," he said. "Why do we do this to ourselves!" Running brings us joy. This will to run is innate.
Reviving The Spirit And Schmaltz Of The Jewish Deli : The Salt Hide caption Nick Wiseman, partner at DGS Delicatessen, inspects the kitchen as an employee prepares pastrami sandwiches for lunch in Washington, D.C. Daniel M.N. Turner/NPR Hide caption Barry Koslow, DGS executive chef, demonstrates the proper technique for rolling a matzo ball. His take on traditional matzo ball soup for Passover includes roasted bone marrow. Daniel M.N. Hide caption An earlier generation of deli owners, and relatives of the DGS partners, keeps watch over a to-go bag at the restaurant's walk-up counter. On a recent morning, just south of Washington, D.C.' Jon and Ralph Rosenbaum are at the front of the line and are the first to be greeted by DGS Delicatessen general manager Brian Zipin, who leads them down a white tile hallway and seats them at a small table against a brick-exposed wall. It's not the first time the two brothers have eaten at DGS, which calls itself a modern Jewish cookery. Experimenting With Tradition The duo have worked in some of D.C.'
Unavoidable bacon shortage: U.K.’s National Pig Association has everyone worried about the price of pork Photo by iStockphoto. It all began, strangely enough, with a press release from an obscure foreign trade association. The National Pig Association of the United Kingdom, you see, wants British customers to feel OK about the idea of paying a higher retail price for pork products. “Vendors want you to buy more of their product at higher prices” is more or less the ultimate dog bites man (or, as the case may be, pork chop) story. Given the rise of bacon worship in recent years, perhaps it’s no surprise that people are upset at the thought of a bacon shortage. Not really. For starters, all bacon isn’t equal. The issue is corn. That’s because corn, for better or for worse, is one of the key commodity inputs of the modern economy. This affects the price of meat in different ways, depending on timing. Hence, the “bacon shortage”—actually a global increase in meat prices as a slightly delayed downstream consequence of the increase in corn prices. And we should keep these price hikes in context.
This Pork Loin Sandwich Starts With Happy Pigs hide captionTwo pigs root in the dirt at Pat McNiff's Rhode Island farm. Catherine Welch/NPR Two pigs root in the dirt at Pat McNiff's Rhode Island farm. It's the time of year when people are flocking to their farmer's market seeking out fresh fruits and vegetables for the summer picnic basket. Providence chef Matt Jennings' sandwich gets its start down a gravel road, around an old, red barn where a couple of light pink pigs roll in the mud to keep themselves cool in the midday heat. "For me, if I was a pig," farmer Pat McNiff says, "This is where I'd want to be." He's got a point. "They don't have to pay taxes, they don't have a mortgage to worry about, they don't have to worry about getting fed," McNiff says. That good life makes great pork. So how can McNiff send these happy, wagging creatures to the slaughterhouse? "Well, we don't name them," he says. Food for customers like Chef Jennings, who, covered in tattoos, looks more like he runs a rock band than a restaurant. For The Slaw
Poop Train You may not give a second thought (or backward glance) to what the toilet whisks away after you do your business. But we got wondering -- where would we wind up if we thought of flushing as the start, and not the end, of a journey? In this short, we head out to trace the trail of sludge...from Manhattan, to wherever poop leads us. This all started back when we were working on our Guts show, and author Frederick Kaufman told us about getting sucked in to the mystery of what happens to poop in New York City. Want some more sewer fun? Read: As Robert and Pat report, some of that sewer sludge made it out into the ocean. Play: Try out our Poop Quiz: Betting Better Fake Chicken Meat Will Be As Good As The Real Thing : The Salt hide captionEthan Brown, founder of Beyond Meat, holds a chicken raised on his family's farm. He says childhood experience with farm animals was the inspiration for starting his company. Yuki Noguchi/NPR Ethan Brown, founder of Beyond Meat, holds a chicken raised on his family's farm. He says childhood experience with farm animals was the inspiration for starting his company. Beyond Meat, a new company based in Maryland, has come up with an alternative to chicken meat that it claims is a dead ringer for the real thing. The inspiration for Beyond Meat (formerly known as Savage River Farms) started, oddly enough, in "chicken country." Growing up around farm animals, Brown says, he became increasingly concerned about their welfare. Only 12 percent of American households consume meat alternatives, and that number hasn't budged much over the years, says David Browne, a senior analyst who tracks the food industry for Mintel, a market-research firm. "And now I'm making fake chicken," he says.
Food, Inc. In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults. Host a Screening