- Author: Suanne Klahorst
![graphic of lettuce with Smartchoice Logo](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/food/blogfiles/12560small.jpg)
Can I introduce the unappetizing topic of hospital food? Hospitals are notorious for not practicing what they preach in their own food service operations. Their food vendors provided fruits and vegetables that were overcooked, over-sugared, over-salted and ready-to-eat. By “leaving the cooking to them,” vendors made cafeterias more profitable by eliminating labor-intensive, freshly prepared meals. Kitchens replaced skilled cooks with untrained staff who rarely needed paring knives except for opening, reheating and disposing of packaging. Fortunately, sustainability goals are helping hospitals (like school cafeterias) undergo menu reform to make more local, fresh options available for their staff, visitors and...
- Author: Aubrey White
![Photo by David Matheson Photography, courtesy of Veritable Vegetable](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/food/blogfiles/12201small.jpg)
* - Updated 8/6/2012
As the local food movement scales up and consumers demand information about where their food comes from, more grocers and institutions are seeking wholesale access to local produce. To make the connection between producers and retail sellers, distribution networks are taking on an increasingly important role in the local food system. More and more, farmers are becoming part of values-based supply chains and ‘food hubs’ to pool their product with that of other farmers and move food more easily to market and complete the chain from farm to fork (*).
New reports released by the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP) show that, while food hubs help close...
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
![princes speech](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/food/blogfiles/10723small.jpg)
I was recently given a copy of the Prince of Wales’ speech “On the Future of Food,” offered at a conference of the same name, held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in May 2011. Rodale has reproduced the speech in a small pamphlet with a foreword written by Wendell Berry, and an afterword provided by Will Allen and Eric Schlosser (all super writers and superstars in the sustainable food system movement). GRACE Communications, which helped sponsor last year’s conference, has created a website – www.ontheFutureofFood.org – to serve as a central site where individuals can learn more about the topic and this speech.
The pamphlet or tract format of this publication was...
- Author: Chris M. Webb
![GPS receiver mounted on a tractor cab. GPS systems are increasingly used in agriculture. Photo J. Williams.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/food/blogfiles/10133small.jpg)
Agricultural innovation and technological advances have been harvested from UC Davis over the last century. As advances are achieved, our growing global population applies pressure for researchers to achieve more. California is a top world-wide producer of agricultural products, and California researchers work hard to find new and better ways to produce food.
The UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES) does much to contribute towards this effort. The recent CA&ES Outlook: Feeding a Hungry Planet highlights current research and innovations to provide agricultural producers knowledge and technology needed to make better,...
- Posted By: Alec Rosenberg
- Written by: Harry Mok
![ucd studentfarm sin judy.650x433](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/food/blogfiles/9290small.jpg)
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when organic was a foreign word to most Americans, students at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz were part of a wave of environmental activism that sought alternatives to agricultural methods that distanced people from farms and relied on heavy use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
In 1971, student enthusiasm for a garden at UC Santa Cruz that used natural cultivation methods grew so much so that 14 acres were set aside for the UC Santa Cruz Farm and Garden to create more opportunities to research...