http://blog.friendseat.com/how-to-id-genetically-modified-food-at-the-supermarket

For conventionally grown fruit, (grown with chemicals inputs), the PLU code on the sticker consists of four numbers. Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 9. Genetically engineered (GM) fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 8.

For example:

- A conventionally grown banana would be: 4011
- An organic banana would be: 94011
- A genetically engineered (GE or GMO) banana would be: 84011

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-09/we-incorporate-genetic-information-food-we-eat-says-new-study

Research at Nanjing University has found that strands of RNA from vegetables make it into our bloodstream after we eat them, and can regulate the expression of our genes once they’re inside us.

MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, are little strands of RNA that selectively bind to matching sequences of messenger RNA, resulting in repression of those genes. Their role has only been understood in the last decade or so, but miRNAs are currently believed to take part in a vast number of processes in both plants and animals.

Chen-Yu Zhang and colleagues found plant miRNA sequences in the tissue of animals that ate those plants. One of them, called MIR168a, is produced by rice and abundantly found in the blood of the Chinese humans studied. In experiments, MIR168a showed the ability to affect gene expression in mouse, inhibiting the liver’s ability to filter out LDL, the lipoprotein with the street name of “bad cholesterol.”

This finding reveals an entirely new mechanism of physiological interaction, which could have significant medical applications as a therapeutic vector as well as explaining processes that are poorly understood (Zhang’s example is Chinese herbal medicine). MicroRNA is also used in the genetic engineering of crops, as a method of RNA interference.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19433_the-6-most-horrifying-lies-food-industry-feeding-you.html

You know what’s awesome? Newspaper. Or, to be precise, the lack thereof. The Internet and other electric media have all but eaten up classic print media, with the circulations of almost all papers on the wane. Say, do you ever wonder what they do with all that surplus wood pulp?

http://www.trendcentral.com/life/haute-and-green/

Though the animal-friendly lifestyle has undoubtedly become a slow-growing but solid mainstay, veganism is making its grand entrance into popular culture decisively. Once viewed as extremist outsiders, vegans are pampering their taste buds with an array of grocery stores, bars and gourmet restaurants as well as fast food eateries, celebrity chefs and viral videos.

http://www.chow.com/food-news/90264/how-youth-sports-make-kids-fat-it-s-the-food/

Forbes writer Bob Cook presents a news item that reveals a counterfactual idea that should freak out parents from coast to coast: Youth sports could do more damage than good to your little pork chops.

How? Cook references a University of Minnesota study that shows kids in sports are more likely to eat fast food and other unhealthy snacks, and backs it up with observations taken from his own family unit:

http://www.nerve.com/news/current-events/fed-up-obese-man-suing-white-castle-for-bigger-booths

White Castle has the taste some people can’t live without, but it also features moderately sized booths. These booths do not sit well (sorry) with 290-pound stockbroker Martin Kessman, who filed suit last week in Manhattan federal court after the fast-food chain failed to increase the size of their booths, which Kessman said they repeatedly promised to do at his local establishment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110802125546.htm

A report in the August issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism might help to explain why it’s so frustratingly difficult to stick to a diet. When we don’t eat, hunger-inducing neurons in the brain start eating bits of themselves. That act of self-cannibalism turns up a hunger signal to prompt eating.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/the-9-foods-the-us-government-is-paying-you-to-eat/241782/#slide9

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/meat-why-bother/

KAŞ, TURKEY — I sit on this peaceful peninsula marveling at how long it’s been since Odysseus sailed the eastern Mediterranean. Then I realize that those millennia are nothing compared with how long our species might take to adapt to the inexorable spread of the American diet.

Once, we had to combine hunting skills and luck to eat meat, which could supply then-rare nutrients in large quantities. This progressed — or at least moved on — to a stage where a family could raise an annual pig and maybe keep a cow and some chickens. Quite suddenly (this development is no more than 50 years old, even in America), we can drive to our nearest burger shop and scarf down a patty — or two! — at will.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=mummy-says-john-horgan-is-wrong-abo-2011-05-19

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/us/15rave.html

SAN FRANCISCO — Along with big-wave surfing and high-altitude ultramarathons, eating is an extreme sport here. Which explains why, on a recent Saturday night, Tipay Corpuz, 21, a technology specialist for Apple, took a break from blogging about her obsession with fried chicken and waffles to join 2,500 fellow food geeks at the Underground Night Market.
At this quasi-clandestine monthly event, a tribal gathering of young chefs, vendors and their iron-stomached followers are remaking the traditional farmers market as an indie food rave.

At midnight, the smell of stir-fried pork bellies was wafting through the Mission district. There was live music, liquor, bouncers, a disco ball — and a line waiting to sample hundreds of delicacies made mostly on location, among them bacon-wrapped mochi (a Japanese rice paste) and ice cream made from red beets, Guinness and chocolate cake.

In a sense it is civil disobedience on a paper plate.

The underground market seeks to encourage food entrepreneurship by helping young vendors avoid roughly $1,000 a year in fees — including those for health permits and liability insurance — required by legitimate farmers markets. Here, where the food rave — call it a crave — was born, the market organizers sidestep city health inspections by operating as a private club, requiring that participants become “members” (free) and sign a disclaimer noting that food might not be prepared in a space that has been inspected.

http://foragesf.com/market/

http://eatrealfest.com/