- Author: Pat Bailey
There’s no better way to get acquainted with a country and it’s culture than to learn to appreciate its cuisine.
With that thought in mind, UC Davis and China’s Jiangnan University, along with China’s Ministry of Education, are establishing the world’s first Confucius Institute devoted to Chinese food and beverage culture on the Davis campus.
You’re invited to attend the new institute’s public opening celebration, complete with song and dance by performers from China, at 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 16, at UC Davis’ Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. Admission is free and visitor parking is $8. More details are available at the Confucius Institute at UC Davis web site at:
- Author: Ann Brody Guy
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Michael Moss is best known for coining the term “pink slime,” a reference to a meat additive that, thanks to Moss’s reporting, had a particularly bad PR day in 2009, when his high gross-out factor exposé was published in the New York Times. Products containing the cringe-inducing substance were subsequently banished from many grocery stores and schools.
In his most recent book, Salt, Sugar, Fat, Moss shined daylight on the happier sounding, but no less alarming phrase “bliss point,” a food industry term for the exact combination of those titular ingredients that stimulates our brain’s pleasure center and makes us — and our kids...
- Author: Sarah Yang
- Editor: Ann Brody Guy
Every wonder whether those crowd-sourced reviews online actually make a difference in a business’s bottom line? For restaurants, the answer is an unequivocal yes, according to a new study by UC Berkeley economists. Researchers analyzed restaurant ratings on Yelp.com and found that, on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, a half-star rating increase translates into a 19 percent greater likelihood that an eatery’s seats will be full during peak dining times.
“This is the first study to link online consumer reviews with the popularity of restaurants,” said study lead author Michael Anderson, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC...
- Author: Alec Rosenberg
Only in California could arid land be converted into the nation’s salad bowl.
In the late 1800s, University of California researchers discovered how to remove salts from the soils of the Central Valley, turning it into one of the most productive agricultural regions.
UC researchers continue to play a key role in agriculture today, keeping California the nation’s leading agricultural state, from dairies in Tulare to nut farms in Newberry Springs.
A new brochure highlights the breadth of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources’ impact. UC guidelines have helped farmers boost broccoli production. UC scientists have developed sweet-tasting citrus and strawberries to meet consumer demands. UC certifies...
- Author: Ann Brody Guy
The United States farm bill is up for renewal this year, and what goes into the $400 billion, 5,000-plus page piece of legislation will affect what tens of millions of Americans eat — and don’t eat — in the coming years. On April 5, UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources fired off an enlightening salvo in the public discourse, with a panel of heavy hitters calling on the public to let their voices be heard in the quest to, as panelist Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, put it, “move farmers and eaters closer together.”
Looking at the bill’s history, it’s not surprising the two...