Just learned about a wonderful new source of short talks on ideas of interest and important. The TED Talks are 15-20 minute video presentations on all kinds of things, including food. Some of the ones I have enjoyed include

Ann Cooper talks school lunches – the fiery chef and head of nutrition for schools in Berkeley, CA quotes CDC stats that say up to 45 percent of school aged kids in the US will be insulin-dependent diabetics within the next decade;

Mark Bittman on what’s wrong with what we eat – talking about the climate change repercussions of eating meat (he’s not a vegetarian!) and the history of bad eating in the USA;

Cary Fowler: One seed at a time protecting the future of food – talking about the importance of biodiversity and the state of global seed banks in a time of climate change;

Dennis van Engelsdorp: a plea for bees – Pennsylvania’s state apiarist talking about bee issues, including varroa mites, colony collapse disorder, wild pollinators, kleptoparasitic bees, and Nature Deficit Disorder.

And there’s poetry too!

CK Williams reading poetry of youth and age;

Yann Arthus-Bertrand – kicking off with the Alberta tar sands – talking in pictures and words about environmentalism and Home: the movie.

How about that: honeybees on the terrace of a Vancouver hotel? Why not?

I was a little surprised to read this directive from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as it had not crossed my mind that the government was so committed to nutritionism. The directive reiterates the Canadian law which requires that white flour sold in this country must be enriched, at a minimum, with thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid and iron; the optional enrichment items include vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, magnesium and calcium:

The Food and Drug Regulations (FDR) require that all white flour and all foods sold in Canada that contain white flour, such as bread, cookies, and pastries, be made from enriched white flour. The sale of unenriched white flour or foods containing unenriched white flour is not permitted in Canada.

Basically the law’s purpose as I read it is that if you refine flour to the point where its colour and texture are what we’re now used to, you have to replace by chemical means all the nutritional value you took out through the refinement process. Whatever keeps the wheels of commerce moving…

And finally, thanks to Pamela for passing it on, check out this site to see an annoying mechanical rodent robot that you can power with a string of fruit or vegetables.

Here’s some light entertainment to get us over the shock.

Thanks to Bernadette for sharing this link to the Fast Food Industry’s 7 Most Heinous Concoctions.

And here’s a Paolo Nutini video to get you dancing towards autumn…