- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A child could eat more than 11,000 servings of lettuce in one day without any ill effect from pesticide residues, even if the lettuce has the highest pesticide residue recorded for lettuce by the USDA. That is just one fact shared on a new pesticide residue calculator produced by the Alliance for Food and Farming, a non-profit organization that provides a voice for farmers to communicate their commitment to food safety and care for the land.
UC Riverside toxicologist Robert Krieger analyzed data from USDA's Pesticide Data Program to create the online...
- Author: Janet L. White
Dipping fresh bread into olive oil has become a popular alternative to coating it with butter. Olive oil consists of 85 percent unsaturated fats, and when substituted for saturated fat in the diet can promote ”good” cholesterol (high density lipoprotein or HDL), reducing risk of coronary artery disease.
Some olive oils are more beneficial than others. "Extra virgin" olive oil (EVOO), for instance, is extracted from the olive fruit without using heat or chemical solvents. This mechanical process retains the highest amount of natural “phenolic compounds” — antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. Such compounds both retard oxidation in the olive oil (keeping it fresh and preventing rancidity)...
- Author: Rachel A. Surls
The Baldwin Park Community Garden sits in the shadow of the San Bernardino Freeway in Eastern Los Angeles County. As the cars rush by, an effective and innovative community garden grows. A unique public-private partnership has made this garden possible to benefit the community and local children.
The garden, which is approximately a quarter acre in size, has both school and community plots. The land and financial support are provided by Kaiser Permanente. The City of Baldwin Park helps to maintain the garden. The Baldwin Park Unified School District uses the garden to engage fourth graders from four classrooms at two elementary schools in hands-on nutrition education through a project called “The Moveable Feast.”
The...
- Author: Penny Leff
You may have noticed changes lately in some little food stores tucked into your neighborhood strip mall or main street, stores with names like "Prime Time Nutrition" or "Fiesta Nutrition." These stores are now offering enticing displays of fresh fruits and vegetables along with the infant formula, breakfast cereal, eggs, cheese and other foods that have been offered to mothers, infants and children through the WIC program since 1972.
The UC Small Farm Program and Cooperative Extension advisors in three California counties are piloting a new "Farm to WIC Program" with the stores to make sure that some of the fresh produce on the shelves comes directly from small-scale local growers,...
- Author: Janet Byron
Senior citizens may have trouble eating and accessing healthy foods due to physiological changes in their gastrointestinal systems, physical problems that limit the ability to shop for and prepare food, or limited incomes that prevent the purchase of adequate and nutritious meals, according to Mary Blackburn, the nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in Alameda County.
Blackburn and her colleagues shared these observations in an article in the current issue of California Agriculture journal titled "Research is...