For the past 25 years, women in North Carolina who wanted to deliver their babies at home have had very little choice in health care practitioners. Because independent midwifery is illegal here, with few exceptions, families are primarily served by practitioners licensed in other states or not licensed at all. A bill pending in the […]
Suzanne Nelson
Posted inFood & Drink
Food, Inc. slips by the foxes at the henhouse
Warning: The article you are about to read could be considered libelous in several states. Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc., which screened last weekend at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham and is scheduled for national release in June, is a damning look at a food system that treats its animals, farmers and workers little […]
Posted inUncategorized
Raw milk may lose its gray dye
In a rare move, the N.C. Department of Agriculture is supporting legislation to overturn the agency’s own regulation requiring all unpasteurized milk sold in the state to be dyed gray. The House overwhelmingly passed the bill last week; the Senate is set to take it up in the next few days. In September, the N.C. […]
Posted inUncategorized
Midwives seek autonomy in N.C.
North Carolina’s high rate of combined fetal and neonatal mortality rank it in the bottom sixth of the nation. The state is also one of only 11 in the country where the practice of midwifery outside the supervision of physicians is illegal. Russ Fawcett doesn’t think that’s a coincidence. Fawcett helps lead an organization committed […]
Posted inUncategorized
Raw milk back on the table
Small-farm advocates, public health officials, representatives of the dairy industry andperhaps most of alldrinkers of unprocessed milk all have their eyes on two bills expected to move through the N.C. General Assembly this session. The first piece of legislation would again legalize what are known as cow sharesthe ability of consumers to pool resources to […]
Posted inGuides
One missing link: organic grains
Demand is growing for locally raised organic meat and eggs from Triangle farms, as well as organic, locally produced breads. But the dearth of organic grain in the state has prevented small producers from serving this market. A recent push by N.C. State is aiming to turn the situation around. Teresa Fischer of Singing Winds […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Vermicomposting: Making worms work for you
The kitchen prep line at the legislative cafeteria in Raleigh generates about 40 pounds of food scraps a day. At most restaurants and home kitchens in America, scraps like those wind up in landfills, buried under piles of nonbiodegradable materials, fermenting and producing greenhouse gases and polluting water supplies. Nationally, about 12 percent of landfill […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Beef and dairy can be good for the planet
Cows get a pretty bad rap these days. Bovines are, well, quite gassy and cow farts have become officially part of the national discourse. The methane cows exude has been blamed as a more potent contributor to global climate change than carbon dioxide, the primary byproduct of burning fossil fuels. (There’s nothing like a little […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Durham hosts healthful living conference Feb. 29
Dr. Thomas Cowan describes a typical American concerned about her health: She eats a low-fat diet, mostly or entirely vegetarian, rich in fiber, and takes multivitamins. She works out, runs and meditates. But Cowan says she might have more energy, greater freedom from the nagging effects of aging and more robust health if she consumed […]
Posted inUncategorized
Durham chickens might fly
It seems that poultry love is infectious. Even as the Indy was going to print with an article about citizens lobbying to relax the zoning laws in Chapel Hill to allow more backyard flocks (“Urban chickens,” Oct. 31), a similar effort was getting off the ground in Durham. More than 400 signatures have been collected […]