San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Culture / Food & Drink

Free to Eat Whatever You Want

by

There are clear reasons that food is safer in Europe than the United States.

By”Jill Richardson / OtherWords>

My neighbor just left to spend the entire summer in Europe.

He’s the guy with a highly restrictive diet I recently wrote about, with countless food intolerances that his “nutritionist” detected using dubious testing methods. I haven’t had the heart to tell him she’s a total quack. I think on some level, he wanted to hear that he couldn’t eat half the foods on the planet.

But I also feel for him. He’s going on the trip of a lifetime to a place with incredible food. What if he won’t eat it?

The day before he left, I asked him what he’ll do on the trip. He told me he plans to eat everything. He and his “nutritionist” agreed that food is better over there. Safer. More pure.   [Read more…]

Few Are Left Fighting For The Ché

by

By Kyle Trujillo, UCSD Undergrad

On Wednesday of finals week, June 11, I cut short a study session and hurried across campus to Scholar’s drive to the Ché Cafe Collective. I knew it as the Che. Besides, it had recently been stripped of its “collective” status. It was the first time I was going to a meeting and not a show.

As I approached the colorful building I slowed down to listen. The walls could talk. The faces of Rigoberta Menchu, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., Karl Marx, former student Angela Davis, and a prowling black panther. In red and black, the face of Ché Guevara stares fiercely from an outer wall and looks out proudly on the inner courtyard. The many murals are not just the work of students, but also local artist Mario Torero and the designer and activist Shepard Fairey.

On the cooperative’s Facebook event page, about 120 had clicked to attend. My heart sunk when I saw that only 20 were actually able to join in. My heart sunk further when I learned only three of us were students. I should have expected this. It was finals week – people who weren’t studying were already flying and driving home.   [Read more…]

June Notes from the Garden

by

Gardening is the new front porch in urban America- share yours!

By Susan Taylor

Here’s good news for everyone. Ninety-five percent of all the insects you find in your garden are beneficial! Before you use or purchase any chemical (read toxic) solutions, you can first check online at the UCDavis Integrated Pest Management (IPM) site. Take a photo of your suspicious little bug and check it at the IPM website to be sure what your insect is and what, if anything, to do about it. Often times you can put some water and a drop or two of dish soap into a plastic spray bottle and that will do the trick (aphids come to mind). Remember to spray UNDER the leaves as well as the tops. I find this website very reassuring because I can’t remember everything, but I can remember where to look for information.

It is early June here in San Diego and you can still plant all your summer vegetables. …   [Read more…]

Man Can’t Live on Cabbage Alone

by

Americans need credible nutrition advice they can trust, not a choice between quacks and “experts” sold out to junk food companies.

By Jill Richardson / OtherWords

I ran into an acquaintance recently and he told me he’d started seeing a new nutrition expert. “You know what?” he said, “It turns out I’m gluten intolerant.”

OK. Him and everyone else. I told him I was glad he found an expert who could help him.

A week later I saw him again. “I went back to the nutritionist,” he said. “I can’t have nightshades either.” That means no more potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, or eggplant.
  [Read more…]

The Dark Truth Behind The Popular Superfood, Quinoa

by

As the hype around quinoa builds, so do big questions about the problems with its production.

By Jill Richardson / AlterNet

Quinoa is rising up the popularity charts as a food staple in U.S. and Europe. A growing spate of positive coverage cites quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wa) as a high-protein grain-like relative of spinach and beets which is a newly discovered gluten-free superfood. Its growing popularity has also spawned a growing source of controversy, following reports that high global quinoa prices put the crop out of reach for the people who grow it.

Many Americans want to get down to the bottom line: Should I eat it or not? Tanya Kerrsen, a Bolivia-based researcher for Food First who studies quinoa, thinks that is the wrong question.

“The debate has largely been reduced to the invisible hand of the marketplace, in which the only options for shaping our global food system are driven by (affluent) consumers either buying more or buying less,” she writes. “…whichever way you press the lever (buy more/buy less) there are bound to be negative consequences, particularly for poor farmers in the Global South.”

So what should you know about quinoa and its complex story?   [Read more…]

Who Knew? Organic Foods Contain a Dose of GMOs

by

By John Lawrence

To be labeled as “USDA organic,” 95% of the ingredients must be organically grown and the remaining 5% may be non-organic agricultural ingredients or synthetic substances that have been approved for use in organics by the USDA.

The 5% of non-organic products are usually derived from GMO corn which is highly sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup.   [Read more…]

Bar 1502: Did You Know the New Noodle House is Open?

by

By Matthew Wood / OB Rag

It’s just after noon on a Friday afternoon and Steven Yeng looks nervous.

The man who opened the wildly popular OB Noodle House is standing in the middle of his new creation, Bar 1502, and the place – which opened less than a week before – is half empty during the normal lunch rush. (Ed.: this is the site of the old Blue Parrot.)

“I don’t think people know we’re open,” he says.

It’s hard to imagine being able to walk into Noodle House and get a table. At the original location, on Cable Street just north of Voltaire, the wait is almost always an hour-plus can grow to more than two hours.

“Locals just couldn’t get in anymore,” Yeng says.

The new location, at Bacon and Niagara, is a sentimental one for Yeng, who grew up on the same block.   [Read more…]

Fast Food Strike Rolls Through San Diego Burger King Restaurants

by

Campaign For Higher Pay, Better Rights Spreads Worldwide

Calling for $15 and the right to form a union without retaliation, fast-food workers in San Diego held a rolling strike Thursday as part of a wave of demonstrations in more than 150 cities across the US and protests in 33 additional countries on six continents. In all, strikes and protests reached more than 230 cities worldwide.

“Our movement is the continuation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream,” said Anthony Eames, a father of five, who works at a Burger King on Market St. making $8 an hour. “I am striking for $15 and a union to create stability for my family.”

Workers went on strike at San Diego’s major fast-food restaurants, including 3 Burger Kings visited during today’s series of actions. Clergy, staffers from the offices of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and Councilwoman Marti Emerald, and community supporters joined fast-food workers on the strike lines.

  [Read more…]

San Diego Fast-Food Employees Strike for Higher Pay and Better Rights On May 15

by

San Diego joins 150-city strike as worker campaign spreads across the globe to three dozen countries and six continents

By Staff

The fast food industry is an issue that isn’t going away.  Front line fast food workers in San Diego are living in poverty while working in a $200 billion industry.  San Diego workers are calling for $15 an hour wages and the right to form a union without retaliation.  Employees from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger-King will be joined by the Interfaith Center for Worker Justice board members and community supporters on Thursday May 15 at two strike locations:

WHERE: Burger King, 3676 Market St.
WHEN: Thursday, May 15, action begins at 6:00 am

WHERE: Burger King, 6401 Balboa Ave.
WHEN: Thursday, May 15, action begins at 12:15 pm

Stand beside the striking workers on May 15!

  [Read more…]

Letter From the Garden: Produce the World around You

by

By Susan Taylor

Artichokes are fun! They grow from a lovely, silver-green plant with fabulous long leaves. You can pick, steam and then eat them. Or you can let the choke stay on the plant till it erupts into a stunning purple flower that lasts a long time. My mother who wasn’t a native San Diegan took artichoke serving very seriously. She would prune off the sharp tips and outer leaves, cook them and serve them at dinner along with little Austrian bowls filled with warm melted butter.

When we got to the thinnest small leaves, Dad would cut the choke out for us so we could put the little meaty section into leftover butter. It was practically religion. One of my artichoke plants just fell over because the growing heads were so heavy. We had them last night.

We’re still planting, people. …   [Read more…]

Street Tacos and Craft Beer Come to Barrio Logan

by

San Diego Taco Company and Border X Brewing Join Forces to Help the Barrio Renaissance

By Brent E. Beltrán

Barrio Logan, San Diego’s hub for Chicano art, culture and activism, is now a destination spot for taco connoisseurs and craft beer aficionados. La Logan has always had culinary and beer tradition with places like the ever busy Las Cuatro Milpas and the long closed down Aztec Brewery. So beer and tacos isn’t a new phenomenon to this working class barrio.

What is new is the decision of catering business San Diego Taco Company and Otay Mesa beer makers Border X Brewing to combine efforts and open a joint tasting room and taqueria on the corner of Logan Ave and Sampson St. in the historic section of Barrio Logan.

The combination of beer and tacos has been a part Mexican food culture ever since Germans brought their brewing techniques to Mexico. And Ernie Pio Becerra of San Diego Taco Company and David Favela of Border X Brewing are carrying on that tradition by serving fresh, handmade tacos and unique craft brews tailored to the tastes of mexicanos and those that appreciate our delicious flavors.

“It’s a great combination of not only the food but the beer and the art all in one place,” says artist and frequent patron Max Bojorquez.   [Read more…]

Toxic Contaminant Releases in Barrio Logan Confirmed – Another Reason to Support the Community Plan

by

By Doug Porter

The release of a statewide list of census tracts most impacted by pollution by the California Environmental Protection Agency (CEPA) will add to the controversy surrounding two ballot measures presented to San Diego voters in the upcoming election.

A story in today’s Los Angeles Times, along with a scalable map, provides a dramatic assessment of impacts by types of contaminants within neighborhoods throughout the state. The CEPA report gives advocates for the Barrio Logan Community Plan hard evidence supporting their contentions concerning health problems caused by the current mix of industrial and residential uses.

Opponents of the Community Plan have dismissed health claims about industrial pollution as the cause of asthma and other health problems, blaming nearby freeways for contaminants. The CEPA study clearly indicates a serious problem with the release of toxic contaminants– as opposed to diesel particulates– into the air specific to the Barrio Logan area.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry