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Articles by Tom Philpott

Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.

All Articles

  • My address to the Southern Appalachian Youth on Food conference

    One crop to rule them all. Photo: USDA Tucked into the rolling hills of North Carolina’s Swannanoa Valley, Warren Wilson College is essentially surrounded by a farm. The school’s 800 students not only tend the 275-acre farm — which includes pastured livestock and vegetables — they also provide the labor to run the campus. They […]

  • Uh, no it doesn’t

    News flash: Coca-Cola has responded to consumer demand and is now producing “healthy” beverages. “Diet and light brands are actually health and wellness brands,” Coke’s CEO E. Neville Isdell told The New York Times. He was referring to a new product called Diet Coke Plus, which is Diet Coke plus a few vitamins. Where do […]

  • Reviving a much-cited, little-read sustainable-ag masterpiece

    The real Arsenal of Democracy is a fertile soil, the fresh produce of which is the birthright of nations.— Sir Albert Howard, The Soil and Health Sir Albert Howard. Around 1900, a 27-year-old British scientist named Albert Howard, a specialist in plant diseases, arrived in Barbados, then a province of the British Empire. His charge […]

  • Please?

    Edible Media takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. Of mites and men (and bees) [Insert perfunctory “buzz” reference into lead:] Buzz about the collapse of domesticated honeybee populations hit the front page of the New York Times yesterday. The steep drop in bee numbers is alarming: A bee […]