archive

May 17, 2013 After years of research, an animal scientist looking for ways to keep inflammation down in cattle came up with a novel approach: feed them flax. The flax in their food helps keep animals healthy and has an added benefit for people who later eat their meat: omega-3 enriched beef.

Summary

March 7, 2013 PETA's President, Ingrid Newkirk, has declared that "humane meat" does not exist. How should we think about this provocative statement? Commentator Barbara J. King invites her readers to give it serious thought.

Summary

March 6, 2013 Love that bacon, but realize that porking up on processed meat ups the risk of cancer and heart disease. That's the word from a big new study that tracked the eating habits of almost a half-million Europeans over 20 years.

Summary

January 10, 2013 Hoping people will think more about where their meat comes from, art graduate student Sarah Hallacher has visualized the U.S. beef industry with a series of steaks (actually, clay) sculpted into the shape of states and packaged in Styrofoam and shrink wrap.

Summary

October 24, 2012 Because we had better food, our brains grew bigger than those of our primate cousins, scientists say. Early humans cooked, which makes meat and veggies more digestible and nutrients more available to the body. Plus, there was all that chatting and chewing around the campfire.

Summary

October 18, 2012 New research suggests that big-game hunting was part of our past for 2 million years. But according to commentator Barbara J. King, our history as meat-eaters can't explain why we find some animals delectable, like chickens and pigs, and eating others out of the question.

Summary

July 26, 2012 Should a healthy human diet be based on the almost-entirely vegetarian habits of ancestral monkeys and apes? Or should we accept that no evolutionary time period is a helpful guide to making good eating choices in today's world?

Summary

July 5, 2012 The Chinese women's Olympic volleyball coach blamed his team's recent losses on their lack of access to safe meat while on the road. A lot of meat that's served in China is tainted with a chemical that's also considered a performance-enhancing drug.

Summary

June 4, 2012 Some producers of "local" meat have had little choice but to ship their products hundreds of miles away to process, and then ship it back for sale. So some small producers are banding together to build slaughterhouses closer to home.

Summary

May 26, 2012 If there's one grilling tip to remember this Memorial Day weekend, it should be this: Flame is bad. Whether you're barbecuing OR grilling, a meat-eater or a vegetarian, here's how to keep your flavor from going up in smoke.

Transcript

On Weekend Edition SaturdayPlaylist

May 24, 2012 Meat processors blame social media and their own lack of transparency for the "pink slime" storm. . But will consumers ever trust the industry when it comes to understanding how the food processing system works?

Summary

April 11, 2012 The federal government says that labeling of the product as an ingredient in ground beef has never been necessary under current food safety and disclosure laws. But some companies are moving ahead to label the product anyway to appease consumers.

Summary

March 22, 2012 Wal-Mart has become the latest food retailer to announce that it's making changes after listening to customer concerns about lean finely textured beef, known by detractors as "pink slime."

Summary

March 19, 2012 According to a U.S. product database, 110 meat substitute products were introduced in 2010 and 2011. All those new products are giving people who are looking for tasty alternatives to meat a lot more choice.

Summary