Kristin Wartman

Rush Limbaugh has done it again. He's lashing out at yet another "overeducated and single" woman, but this time it's Tracie McMillan, an author (he calls her an "authorette") who recently published, The American Way of Eating. In her book, McMillan goes undercover for a year at Walmart,...

Paula Deen's public admission that she has Type 2 diabetes and her follow-up announcement that she is also a paid spokesperson for the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, and its diabetes drug, Victoza, has sparked an interesting debate about the deeper issues surrounding our food system--especially the...

If there were any lingering doubts as to whom our elected representatives really work for, they were put to rest Tuesday when Congress announced that frozen pizza was a vegetable. The United States Congress voted to rebuke new USDA guidelines for school lunches that would have increased the amount of...

How much do you know about your Thanksgiving turkey? If you buy your turkey from a typical grocery store -- and most Americans do -- you might not realize that the approximately 46 million turkeys consumed every year come from a factory farm.

But if Thanksgiving is truly about offering...

How much do our personal consumer choices affect change? Within the food movement, personal choice and the food products we spend our money on have been emphasized as the way to create change. But is this a fallacy? Have we all be led astray thinking that we can truly create...

Joel Salatin was in Union Square Wednesday talking about his new book, appropriately titled, Folks, This Ain't Normal and passionately spoke about the state of industrial agriculture and its effects on our soil, our health, and our culture.

When I asked him what...

Food luminaries Marion Nestle and Anna Lappe will be on hand to Occupy Against Big Food in the midst of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park this Saturday. Nestle, Lappe and others will discuss just how the food movement and the occupy movement are aligned. "The...

If you are paying attention to Occupy Wall Street--and by now most people are--the anti-corporate message is coming through loud and clear. Most participants at the events now spreading across the country say they are no longer willing to let powerful corporate interests determine the course of their lives. These...

Food corporations enjoy carte blanche on what they can say about their foods, how and to whom they advertise, and even (to a large degree) the ingredients they choose to put in their foods. But when the Obama administration recently proposed voluntary guidelines for the types of food...

In my recent critique of the new USDA dietary guidelines, I wrote that we'll never see a real food version of MyPlate as long as the food industry holds sway over the guidelines and USDA continues to promote industrial foods.

While this is true, there's no...

The USDA finally did away with the much-maligned Food Pyramid and replaced it with MyPlate. Many in the food world are calling it progress. It's certainly a clearer and more concise image and deserves some credit for the fact that half of the plate is comprised of fruit...

For something that's so often mixed with anti-caking agents, salt takes a lot of lumps in the American imagination. Like fat, people tend to think of it as an unnecessary additive -- something to be avoided by seeking out processed foods that are "free" of it. But also...

Chemicals and additives found in the food supply and other consumer products are making headlines regularly as more and more groups raise concern over the safety of these substances. A recent statement released by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asked for reform to the Toxic Substances...

One in four children goes without breakfast each morning, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A tragedy to be sure -- but are Kellogg's breakfast products the solution?

Last week Kellogg announced its new project called Share Your Breakfast, part of a national advertising campaign. The...

The low-fat trend finally appears to be on its way out. The notion that saturated fats are detrimental to our health is deeply embedded in our Zeitgeist--but shockingly, the opposite just might be true. For over 50 years the medical establishment, public health officials, nutritionists, and dietitians have been telling...