Halal food certification in Australia has become a contentious issue. Recently, a Western Australian cafe received hateful and anti-Islamic messages after its owners tried to explain halal on Facebook…
Fill your boots. Fruit and veg of the unprocessed variety.
Garry Knight
We are on the brink of an important change in how we are encouraged to think about our diet. Britain’s health authorities are considering whether to allow processed or “composite foods” to carry the official…
Families can fill up on more than food when they dine together.
Dining image via www.shutterstock.com.
As a family therapist, I often have the impulse to tell families to go home and have dinner together rather than spending an hour with me. And 20 years of research in North America, Europe and Australia…
Food labelling is a contentious topic that has been going through the mincer for decades. Many of the issues have been designed to aid the consumer, such as the traffic light system, and clearer displays…
OK you can trust this food label. But calories? Forget it.
Bryan Kennedy
Food labels seem to provide all the information a thoughtful consumer needs, so counting calories should be simple. But things get tricky because food labels tell only half the story. A calorie is a measure…
Fancy something a bit different this year?
Caroline Yeldham, courtesy of the Leeds International Medieval Congress
With Christmas almost upon us, there will be plenty of frenzied present shopping and meal planning. Haven’t made that Christmas cake yet? Fear not. If you were preparing the festive meal 600 years ago…
During post-war British rationing, Australians ensured the tradition of Christmas puddings survived.
Victor Bayon
In a current TV advertisement for supermarket chain Aldi, a young traveller returns to his northern hemisphere village and shares his newfound knowledge of the Aussie Christmas. The villagers begrudgingly…
Consuming bath milk is particularly risky because it may contain the deadly STEC E.Coli bug.
Olga Prokopova/Shutterstock
The death this week of a Victorian toddler after allegedly drinking “bath milk” is a reminder of how dangerous some natural cosmetics can be. The product – Mountain View Organic Dairy’s Organic Bath Milk…
Islamic dietary law requires that certain methods be used when preparing meat, such as that a Muslim be the one butchering the animal.
Reuters
For many Muslims, adherence to Islamic dietary laws, known as halal, is an intrinsic part of their everyday lives. Even those who are relatively lax with other rituals of the faith tend to adhere to halal…
Nutritious meal inside? Maybe, maybe not.
Lunchbox image via www.shutterstock.com.
Ravenous students, busy parents, nutrition professionals and school officials all have their own ideas about what belongs on the school lunch table. Plenty of criticism centers on the unhealthiness of…
Ruth Reichl, the former restaurant critic of The New York Times and author of best-selling gourmet memoirs Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples, is known for describing, in vivid detail, how food…
Some market gardens face being squeezed out by land-hungry developers.
Flickr/Indigo Skies Photography
Australia is regarded as a food-secure country and this is mostly true for bulk commodities such as dairy, grain and meat, which make up a large part of our diet. But many people are still failing to eat…
Another victim of (Borough) Market forces …
laFeba
Political wrangling over food prices has a long history, and a difficult future. We have become used to ever-cheaper food, but a closer look at what’s happening shows that what we buy and how much we pay…
LED growing lights, delivering sunlight whatever the weather.
Philips
The challenges of growing enough food to feed the world have grown more severe in the 21st century. We need to feed more people with limited agricultural land and resources. We need to make better use…
Really shouldn’t have eaten that parsley…
@Wintersonworld
Jeanette Winterson’s trapping and cooking of a rabbit has led the author into a heated dispute. Posting an image of the skinned animal on her kitchen counter with the comment “Rabbit ate my parsley. I…
Eating is clearly more than just about getting the right nutrition.
Brianna Lehman/Flickr
Kate Flinders, Defence Science and Technology Organisation
Eating good food promotes overall health and well-being, but what you eat may also impact how you feel. Research suggests that not only can the food you eat affect your mood, but that your mood may influence…
Think of medieval food and a whole range of not especially dignified images come to mind; Monty Python’s Holy Grail has a lot to answer for. Mud was far from being a constituent part of the diet of the…
While Australia’s national food and agriculture debate centres on boosting production and increasing exports, our local food industry is being neglected. That’s a shame because countries such as the United…