Last week I saw Michael Pollan on Oprah Winfrey talking about local, sustainable food. He was explaining the health benefits of avoiding processed foods and buying produce at your local farmers market. And this was on one of the highest…

Some may think saving rhubarb is going a little too far, but nothing is too small to save. If you like pie, jam, and wine, rhubarb might just be right for you. It grows without chemicals, lasts for years when…

A cloned Turkish Angola kitten gives off a red fluorescence glow while an ordinary one appears to be green in this picture taken under ultraviolet light at a laboratory of Gyeongsang National University in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, Wednesday. The cloned cat’s genes were modified with a fluorescent protein.

Yesterday I read the story of Lucy in a local newspaper. For 10 years Lucy lived locked in the basement of a house disturbingly close to my own. She was forced to do household chores for no pay and barely…

Take a drive a little northeast of Rockford, Illinois, along a long, bumpy, straight, and narrow road tracing a section line to Angelic Organics, an idyllic symbol of how important the small farm was to the American economy — and health. It is a beautiful farm with rich and lush fields of vegetables and herbs. But walking past the fields you will see a difference immediately: chickens ranging freely between the rows of vegetables (insect control), and huge boxes of black earthy soil percolating with glossy earthworms (fertilization). Angelic Organics is not just a symbol of a by-gone era.

This was to go up yesterday, until Tuesday’s earthquake devastated Haiti. Rather than cancel the post, I’m posting it with this suggestion… Think about the comfort food you love, the things you love to do, the people in your life whom you love – really generate in your heart an intense feeling of love – and send that to the people of Haiti and to the souls who have so suddenly been separated from their bodies. Favorite comfort foods for North American Presbyterian Hunger Program facebook fans. List! Cheese grits win. Pot roast, mac’n cheese and chicken with dumplings close runner ups.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance are collecting money for emergency relief for people impacted by the massive earthquake that struck Haiti, just outside Port-au-Prince yesterday. Your help is greatly needed. A powerful 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti Tuesday afternoon around 5:00 p.m. The epicenter was just 10 miles west of Port au Prince, Haiti’s most densely populated city. Initial reports indicate major damage to infrastructure including collapse of hospitals, schools and government buildings. Phone service is out in much of the country making communication, damage assessment and response efforts difficult.

michelle obama’s shopping tote

“Making affordable, locally and regionally-grown organic food available to all – rich, middle-income and poor – must become a top priority for city and county governments across the nation.” That’s the goal of a campaign called “Breaking the Chains” by…

The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, a year long celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity. We rely on this diversity of life to provide us with the food, fuel, medicine and other essentials we simply cannot live without. Yet this rich diversity is being lost at a greatly accelerated rate because of human activities. This impoverishes us all and weakens the ability of the living systems, on which we depend, to resist growing threats such as climate change. May we protect and restore ecosystems this year so they can maintain and increase their biological diversity! View UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-Moon addressing the topic