Feature

Cheese and Biodiversity – On the War Against Bacteria

Cheese and Biodiversity – On the War Against Bacteria
Buket Soyyilmaz United States

“It’s safe to say we’ve gone overboard on the war against bacteria,” says Michael Pollan in the “Earth” episode of the Netflix documentary series Cooked. Pollan visits Sister Noella Marcellino, a nun and cheese producer from Connecticut who until recently made cheese with traditional French methods, using wooden barrels rather than stainless steel vessels. Because of a potential outbreak of Listeria—an infectious bacteria—health inspectors forced Sister Noella to stop using wooden barrels. Following her switch to stainless steel containers, the levels of poisonous E. coli in the cheese spiked. In the episode, Pollan finally finds out that it was the bacteria produced by the wood itself that kept her original cheese E. coli-free.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault Under Threat?

Svalbard Global Seed Vault Under Threat?
NorwaySyria

The Global Seed Vault is one of the most important seed banks in the world, situated less than a thousand miles from the North Pole in the Longyearbyen settlement on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. It contains seeds from more than 930,000 crop varieties, and has the capacity to store up to 4.5 million. The location, isolated and surrounded by permafrost, should make the Global Seed Vault one of humanity’s securest safety nets in the event of catastrophe. Yet in recent weeks, news has been spreading across the web of a supposed “breach” at the Vault, “flooding” the entryway and endangering the seeds.
Satisfied at Sea – an interview with Barbara Rodenburg of the Wadden Sea Fishers

Satisfied at Sea – an interview with Barbara Rodenburg of the Wadden Sea Fishers
Rifka Verma Netherlands

The Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage site & the largest unbroken system of intertidal sand and mud flats in the world, is also home to Barbara Rodenburg, who has dedicated her life to the sea as a fisher, a biologist and as a chef. Barbara takes us through her journey from joining Slow Food to her experiences at the Wadden Sea, after serving us with some delightful wild oysters & shore crabs from the Slow Food Presidium of Wadden Sea Traditional Fishers at the Chef’s Alliance Kitchen, Slow Fish 2017.
Industrial Meat Is Devouring the Planet

Industrial Meat Is Devouring the Planet
Stefano Liberti

The philosophy of our Slow Meat campaign can be summed up with one simple slogan: eat less meat, of better quality. The commercial meat industry has a completely opposing view that displays a blatant disregard for consumer, animal and farmer well-being, and is destroying the environment in the process. In this article, Stefano Liberti, author and friend of Slow Food, explores one of the enormous, global problems of industrialized meat production, namely the vast overpopulation of animals being raised for us to eat.