Tom Douglas

Food in the News by Shelley Lance/ Blog Editor

Don’t know what to do with all the fruit on your plum trees? or apple or pear trees? Today’s Seattle Times has an article about City Fruit.  Volunteers from this amazing group will pick the fruit from your trees and donate the harvest to food banks.  Not only that, City Fruit offers instruction in pruning, pest management, and even helps you find workshops to learn canning and preserving.  You can also register your trees on a city fruit tree map, “an important but often overlooked element in the urban forest canopy.”  Where did all those fruit trees in our backyards come from?  Some people think they were planted as part of Victory Gardens during World Wars I and II.

An interesting op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times promotes the idea of creating vertical gardens as part of urban high-rise buildings worldwide.

A tweet from food writer Jonathan Kauffman brought this article from the Journal Star to my attention.  Finally, changes in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) federal supplemental food program allow particpants to purchase fruits and vegetables.  Until now, cereal, milk, 100% fruit drinks, eggs, peanut butter and dried beans could be purchased, but not fresh fruits or vegetables or bread. The changes are consistent with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that diets contain less cholesterol and saturated fat and more fiber, fruits, and vegetables.

August 25th, 2009