Mainstream Media Madness on Sustainable Food

The past few days have seen such a fabulous mix of really good food articles in the mainstream media, I feel I have little choice but to round them all up here (if only for my own sanity).

Fish and Seafood
Last week, the Vancouver Sun told us we "can and should eat fish." The article highlights Vancouver Aquarium seafood conservation program, Oceanwise, that rates local partners and restaurants on how sustainable their seafood choices are.

Closer to home, Monique Beaudoin at The Gazette checked out her local Provigo grocery store with Beth Hunter from Greenpeace Canada. The pickings were slim, but not impossible. Her associated blog post offers some tips to help you make sustainable seafood choices, as well as a YouTube video, FishVision Glasses.

Over at the New York Times, well-known food writer Mark Bitten explains why putting fish on the dinner table isn't as simple as it used to be, and shares some of his own dilemmas around buying fish. This article was one of my favourites this week. An associated post on his blog offers a link to the trailer for the documentary End of the Line, released earlier this week in the United kingdom, as well as a clip of Bittman in a radio interview on "The Takeaway"

Battle Against Big Agriculture
On Wednesday, the Life section of the print edition of the Globe and Mail offered its take on the documentary film Food, Inc., which arrives in Montreal and Toronto on June 19th. It also has a practical Q&A with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, about eating well, eating organic and eating local. The section also features a review of Quebec artisan cheese Blue Haze. I know what I'll be picking up at the cheese shop very soon!

Eating Local
How does locally-made pasta from locally-grown heritage grains sound? It sounded good enough for the Globe and Mail to include a story about it on Monday.

Montreal is not without local awesomeness as well. Stéphanie Bérubé at La Presse offers us 10 québecois products that local locavores should check out, from organic sausages to cider and miso and mushrooms. She follows this up with a list of 10 things a local gourmand must (absolutely) do (soon). I agree!

Phew! That's a lot for a few days. There were even more stories and articles that passed across my desk and twitter this week. I suspect a lot of the media madness has been due to World Ocean's Day on Monday as well as all the media work that is being done around the wider release of Food, Inc next week. Whatever the cause, it's been a busy week!