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China is apparently succumbing to pressure from its affluent middle class to stop eating dogs and cats. Which I suppose is a good thing. As a pet owner, I'd much rather not eat my cat -- or have anyone else eat her for that matter. But why the taboo? Yes, pet owners do come to regard their pets as part of their families -- akin to having children -- but why just dogs and cats? There are people who keep pigs, cows, horses, etc., yet we don't seem to have the emotional reaction to their consumption -- either by us or in the meat that feed our beloved dogs and cats. I think the taboo is silly, but also think our general consumption of meat needs to be rethought. Generally, we're ravenous when it comes to meat -- vegetarians excepted. There is a huge environmental cost to its consumption, and the taking of a life, regardless of whether it was raised specifically for that purpose, is done without a second thought. There is little respect or thanks given for the life that...

As this study just published in France reveals, genetically modified (GM) maize may not be good for human consumption. The study looked at three GM maize -- NK 603 , MON 810 and MON 863 -- all of which are approved for feed and human consumption in Canada. NK 603 has been engineered to be tolerant of the herbicide glyphosate -- popularly branded by Monsanto as Roundup. Farmers are encouraged to control weed that compete with their maize crops using Monsanto's Roundup -- but since Roundup would destroy their crops as well, they needed the NK 603 genetically modified maize to be their crop. Monsanto of course, makes their money from selling both the poison that will kill their crops and the crops that have immunity from their own poison. Sweet deal. MON 810 and MON 863 GM maize, have been modified to synthesize two Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins used as insecticides -- commonly known as Dipel and Thuricide. Bt toxins are applied in a liquid spray to maize crops -- and to ...

Many thanks to both Linda and Tessie for composing a great breakfast, recently! Breakfast highlight was Linda's totally awesome Irish bread, topped with Tessie's Truly Terrific Strawberry jam -- which is being rationed in our household.

I've no idea what I'm listening to right now, but it's pop, from south-east Asia -- maybe Tamil. My wife and I were in our favourite restaurant last week for our date night . This CD -- whatever it is -- was playing in the restaurant. The combination of the atmosphere of a familiar place, hip music -- that we didn't really understand -- good food, familiar staff that already know what we'll be drinking and just being in love, must have made the music sound really good. We remarked to the guy who was serving us that the music was good -- and I wanted to know what it was. I couldn't read the writing of course, so I asked if he could make me a copy. He said next time we were in, he'd have a copy for us. Tonight, we arrived for our usual supper. My wife had picked up a bouquet of flowers for the Ganesha altar they have at the entrance. We were seated, ordered the karahi chicken and fish masala , and the guy who was serving us (same as last time), came...

By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. And there you have it folks. It's quite simple. The United States has voted to starve the world -- including people in the US -- in its participation on the UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on the Right to Development. By the terms of the text, the Assembly would express concern that, in many countries, girls were twice as likely as boys to die from malnutrition and childhood diseases and that twice as many women as men were estimated to suffer from malnut...

Thanksgiving history isn't lost on me -- it is a harvest festival that has been celebrated in North America for hundreds of years, but the cynic in me can't help but think of the North American aboriginals that got there thanks the hard way at the hands of the European settlers. Wonder how they view Thanksgiving. Anyway, I'm not about to start another tirade on political and social injustices. For my wife, it's a tradition that brings back memories of family -- and so this year, I decided to take on the task of bringing some tradition to the table for supper. I've never roasted a turkey before, and since we're only a family of four, my wife asked that I do something smaller. So I got a chicken. Something smaller. I've never roasted one of those before either, so I called on my friend, Google, and found the instructions at Canadian Living to create a classic roast turkey -- which I applied to my chicken -- with some slight modifications, as I'm n...

Yes, your gas guzzling SUV is not only contributing to the destruction of the environment, it's also putting the world's poor and starving in more jeopardy. According to the Guardian, a secret World Bank report finds that the production of biofuels has contributed up to 75% to recent rise in food prices. The report, completed in April, was not released in order to not cause an embarrassment to George W. Bush, who's championing biofuels to reduce American dependence on foreign oil. Read more here .

There are few faceless corporations that are truly evil. Monsanto is one of them. One must wonder about the people who are the tireless cogs in its machinery -- as they slog away, do they ever wonder about the machine they power? Vanity Fair is running an investigative piece that looks at Monstanso: its quest to control the food supply chain and the destruction of the environment that it is responsible for. If I worked for Monsanto, I think I would breaking glass and diving out of the offices of its highest towers, because I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Evil.

Honeybees are dying off mysteriously, and it's causing quite a stir in circles that usually don't care if another species is about to kick the bucket. Honeybees are important to the food industry in more ways than just the production of honey. Honeybees are valued at about $15US annually for the pollinating services they provide. Without them, there would be a lot less food being produced, and prices would skyrocket. The bees problem, labeled Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is occurring in North America and Europe. Bees are leaving their hives, with the Queen and a few workers, and not coming back. To date, there are many theories as to why this is happening: from man-made problems, such as pollutants, to an infestation that's hitting the bees hard. Whatever the problem -- there's definitely a problem -- and our dependence one of nature's busiest creations has never been so clear. The problem is so serious, that financial and public awareness help is comin...

Chinese food quality is making the rounds in the news in North America. Food quality is also making the news in China. Yesterday, as I flew out of Shanghai, I heard the news of an undercover TV crew that busted a dim-sum restaurant in Beijing's Chaoyang District. The restaurant, in a effort to save money amid rising pork prices, started to cut their steamed pork-stuffed buns with cardboard. The recipe went like this: Cardboard was soaked in water and an industrial-use caustic soda, a poisonous chemical, was added. The cardboard lost its normal color and became fragile under the soda's strong causticity, making it look more like pork. Finally, pork-smell essence and pork fat were stirred into the concoction to make the stuffing more "vivid." Product quality in China is suspect, and to be fair, China is starting to take product quality seriously. Earlier this month China executed the State Food and Drug Administration director, Zheng Xiaoyu , for taking bribes to ...

I'm not one to cook from recipes. I have difficulty keeping up with too many instructions. I'd much rather just start in the kitchen and see where the dish takes me. Sometimes I totally screw things up -- but mostly, things sorta work out. Tonight however, I decided to try a recipe, and more or less, stick to it. I had seen a couple of Persian recipes for dishes served during Naw Ruz celebrations in Chatelaine's April 2007 issue. The pictures looked enticing, and I wanted to taste the food. So, when the opportunity presented itself to cook dinner tonight, I went for the Jewelled Rice and Roasted Eggplant Dip (served with pitas) -- click the links for the recipes. The result was pretty good. I enjoyed both dishes -- and my wife must have, as she had seconds. I did make some modifications to the recipes. For the Roasted Eggplant Dip, I had no tomato paste, so I ignored it. I completely forgot the garlic, so it wasn't included. And since I had ...

I've been eating less and less meat -- ever since my wife. She takes care of my health better than I do -- tuning my stomach to things I had never heard of before, such as flax, fibre, and omega-3, 6 & 9. Lately, the only meat my stomach has had the opportunity to rejoice to has been chicken, turkey and fish. Nothing else. Which isn't all that bad. I was never a big beef eater -- but occasionally, I have been tempted by a burger, which I have managed to resist for so long, that I can no longer remember the last time I've had one. So when NOW magazine recently published their top 25 list of vegetarian restaurants in Toronto , I flipped to it, intrigued. I am interested in trying every one of them in the next several months or so, including some restaurants that weren't on their list, but were in the ads in that section. So, with the help of NOW, here are the restaurants I'm going to have a go at. Café 668 | 668 Dundas W. , at Denison, 416-703-0668. Update...