Reading List for July 26-30

1. "Unsafe at Any Meal"

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of "Food, Inc.", writes in the New York Times about the food safety bill now languishing in the Senate.

"Food processors reluctant to oppose the bill openly will be delighted if it dies a quiet death. That’s because, right now, very few cases of food poisoning are ever actually linked to what the person ate, and companies that sell contaminated products routinely avoid liability. The economic cost is instead imposed on society. And it’s a huge cost. According to a recent study sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the annual health-related cost of food-borne illness in the United States is about $152 billion."

2. "The Future of the Sea"

A book review of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg, from The Economist

"Four wild fish species [salmon, seabass, cod and tuna] dominate the world’s seafood markets, but that might not last much longer. As Paul Greenberg observes in a sharp and occasionally lyrical book, we are at a significant moment: farmed fish now make up around half of all the fish consumed by humans."

3. Odes to Oysters

"Memories on the Half Shell" and "Where Oysters Grew on Trees" - both published in the NYTimes - read like short stories.

"The names of the oysters stayed with me — each one representing a distant, mysterious seaside community, where fogs settled over serpentine estuaries and men repaired their fishing nets around lantern-lighted tables at night. I felt that somewhere far outside the city (Pemaquid? Apalachicola?) there existed a briny, muscular life that had more meaning than mine, if only because it was aligned with the tides. I wanted to grow up and become part of a place like that. "

4. Teaching Kids to Eat Healthily

"School Lunches in France: Nursery-School Gourmets" from TIME

"[A brochure] lists in great detail the lunch menu for each school day over a two-month period. On Mondays, the menus are also posted on the wall outside every school in the country. The variety on the menus is astonishing: no single meal is repeated over the 32 school days in the period, and every meal includes an hors d'oeuvre, salad, main course, cheese plate and dessert."

"[I]n a country where con artists and adulterers are tolerated, the laws governing meals are sacrosanct and are drummed into children before they can even hold a knife. The French don't need their First Lady to plant a vegetable garden at the Élysée Palace to encourage good eating habits. They already know the rules: sit down and take your time, because food is serious business."