GLUTEN FREEDOM: Dr. Stephen Wangen, founder of the IBS Treatment Center, has a new book out called Healthier Without Wheat: A New Understanding of Wheat Allergies, Celiac Disease, and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance. As you can tell from the title, his contention is that you don't have to have celiac disease to be gluten intolerant. Personally, we are disturbed by intolerance of any kind, so we are glad to hear that he's working on a cure--what? Just don't eat wheat? more ›

Haven't you always wondered where your flour comes from? It could matter. (Remember the peanut scare?) Now you can go online, to Find the Farmer, and meet the people who grow the wheat and get connected with your food! The project is the brainchild of Josh Dorf, ceo of Stone-Buhr, a Spokane company that rejects the notion of wheat as an anonymous commodity. Stone-Buhr's suppliers are some three dozen family farmers who practice sustainable agriculture; they have a Seattle PR firm, Good Food Strategies, and an article in today's New York Times. A (slice of) toast is in order! more ›

No Zoo Doo this spring! Woodland Park Zoo just notified us that their highly popular Fecal Fest Zoo Doo lottery--which brings that "fresh Zoo smell" to your backyards and P-Patches--has been canceled for spring because of a shortage of safely Grade-A poop. Turns out there are "unacceptable levels of the herbicide clopyralid" in the Zoo's doo--the herbicide is used on hay and wheat fields, doesn't break down easily, and now that it's stored in the animal manure, would likely wreak havoc on gardeners' pea, sunflower and tomato crops. Is that all? "In laboratory tests, clopyralid caused what a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviewer called 'substantial' reproductive problems," says Mindfully.org. Circle of goddamn life people! Used on wheat fields, eh? What's in your poop? (Strictly a rhetorical question.) more ›