http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk A piecemeal investigation into the origins of our food Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:56:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Know your enemy Poisonous Plants and Fungi: An Illustrated Guide by Cooper, Johnson, Dauncey Plants and fungi can be dangerous. For all our very real concerns about healthy diets, chemical additives and pesticide residues, it's wild, natural plants that have the potential to cause immediate harm and even death. For anyone tempted by the ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/08/06/poisonous-plants-fungi/ When people eat (source Cabinet Office) Enlarge The Tracing Paper is mostly interested in what we eat, where it comes from and how it's produced. But the when of food is also changing in revealing ways. This graph - one of many intriguing graphic displays of the data of our food in ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/28/when-do-we-eat/ What influences food prices (source Defra) Enlarge Note the fourfold effect of the oil price The UK government is at last waking from its long complacent slumbers and asking serious questions about food security. After enjoying an abundant supply of ever cheaper food for the last five decades, the developed world may ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/18/essential-food-security/ The Co-operative Group has announced today that it's agreed to buy Somerfield for just short of £1.6 billion, a long way below the £2 to 2.5 billion Somerfield's owners expected when they put it up for sale in January. The co-op is different from other retailers. It's owned by its customers ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/16/more-co-operative-retail/ The welfare of chickens has received long overdue attention this year. Most prominent has been Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Out! campaign, which may not have succeeded in changing Tesco's welfare policy (for now) but has evidently shifted some demand from conventional to the higher welfare Freedom Food, free range and organic ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/16/wheres-that-chicken-from/ "Cherries on Tree" at Park Farm orchard from Ida@Sustain's Flickr Recipes Online Cherry recipes from UK food blogs Recipes in Print Jane Grigson's Fruit Book Wild Food by Roger Phillips Mid-July and it's the height of the all-too-brief British cherry season. For their sublime aroma and intense sweetness, and for the sake of our desperately declining ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/14/eat-british-cherries-now/ Figure illustrating food prices from Food Matters The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they feed themselves. (Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste) This unlikely quote is one of three that open the new Cabinet Office report on food policy, Food Matters: Towards a strategy for the 21st century. Less ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/11/food-the-destiny-of-our-nation/ Salad grown at Growing Communities' urban plot Springfield Park, Clapton, North London London's City Hall hosted the inspiring Growing Food for London conference last Monday, 30th June, organised by London Food Link (if you live in London and are interested in food then join!) with the London Parks and Green Spaces Forum, ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/07/10/london-feed-yourself/ Inside a Fresh and Easy Store (photo Fresh and Easy) The Guardian reports that Barack Obama has written to Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of Tesco, to urge him to engage with the US trade union representing workers at Tesco's new US venture, Fresh and Easy. Without union engagement, the union claims ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/06/26/obama-v-tesco/ Absence Still from Our Daily Bread - spraying sunflowers Loyal visitors to the Tracing Paper will have noticed a distinct lack of activity over most of the last year. I'm ashamed that I only just avoided a clear six month hiatus with a (very) brief post about the superb documentary on the ... http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/2008/06/23/a-long-time-in-food/