Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
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It’s the ‘burbs, stupid: on the Ezra Klein/Tom Vilsack dustup
Carried away: Ezra Klein and Tom Vilsack ride an imaginary “raft of subsidies.” This week, an interesting — and, I think, bizarre — argument broke out between Washington Post political blogger Ezra Klein and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. The topic was whether rural residents deserve what Klein called a “raft of subsidies,” when in fact, […]
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Sustainable Apparel Coalition delivers the eco-skinny on your skinny jeans
Wheredja get those jeans?I spend a lot of time shining a light on murky areas of the food system, but what about the industrial-apparel complex? Just as the food we eat has a material basis and a history, so do our clothes. It turns out that I know a lot more about the (grass-fed, local) […]
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Debunking the stubborn myth that only industrial ag can ‘feed the world’
Hold the agrichemicals: Organic ag could keep markets brimming with food. I’ve written about it once already, but I want to return to The Economist’s recent special series about how industrial agriculture is the true and only way to feed the 9 billion people who will inhabit the world by 2050. The framing, I think, […]
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The real scandal of ‘reduced-fat Skippy peanut butter spread’ isn’t the salmonella
Just say no.Photo: Bill CorCorrected: See below. —— Skippy, a brand owned by European food giant Unilever, has issued a recall of its “reduced fat” peanut butter products. Evidently, they have become tainted with salmonella — an unhappy echo of the widespread 2009 salmonella outbreak from salmonella-tainted “peanut paste.” But the real scandal with Skippy® […]
