Howl at the Moon HOME ON EARTH FOR
JOURNALIST, AUTHOR AND CAMPAIGNER 

Pat Thomas

Articles (Hospitality & Catering News)

This archive of investigations, reports and interviews below spans from my work with What Doctors Don’t Tell you through my ‘Ecologist years’ to some of my more recent work (see also my Blogs page) with other publications and from the NYR Natural News website, which I edit and Beyond GM campaign and its associated websites.

It does not include the large body of feature work which I did as a music journalist – work I am equally proud of but which came before the internet made archiving easier!

What Doctors Don’t Tell you re-wrote the book on how journalists should approach health. Instead of rewriting press releases, blindly following the latest fads or relying on rent-a-quote experts, the team immersed itself in the medical journalist that Doctors were – or should have been  – reading. These often tell a very different story to the PR that filters through to the media about modern pharmaceuticals.  I was a contributing editor at WDDTY for nearly a decade and editor of Proof! – the consumer magazine that grew out of the work we did there.

The Ecologist magazine, founded in 1970, was the world’s oldest and most widely read environment magazine. It was a driving force in major environmental campaigns against climate change, toxic chemicals in household products, rainforest destruction, food additives, genetic modification and much more. Its courageous, in-depth journalism provided early-warning signs for all the environmental challenges we face now and was, for decades, hugely influential in setting the environmental and green political agendas in the UK and elsewhere. The New York Review of Magazines called it “A magazine that changes people’s lives”. I was privileged to be its Health Editor and then Editor for several years before it ceased printing in 2009 and have continued to contribute ad hoc to it’s website.

My interest in a less interventionist, more natural approach to health continues to this day. NYR Natural News is the only alternative health website based in the UK. It has a growing UK and international audience of people who want good information on health alternatives and who want to understand the connections between environment and health. It is also an increasingly powerful voice in environment and GM campaigning, exposing the toxic connections between multinational corporations and political policy and their impact on human well-being.



26 Jul 2019

An Uncontrolled Experiment in Out of Home Eating

Novelty, the ability to stay ahead of trends and to offer the unusual is one of the things that drives the restaurant business. There is very little regulation around the kind of food that can be served. There’s no real prohibition, for instance, against serving endangered species – though this is a questionable practice, especially […]

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25 Feb 2019

Nutrient Collapse – Why Biofortified Food Won’t ‘Feed the World’

‘Bioengineering’ nutrients into our food – a promise which so far has failed to materialise – distracts us from real issues of soil degradation, climate change, poor diet choices and lack of political will to support a right to food.

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12 Nov 2018

Organic GMOs – Ask Yourself, Can This Ever Be a ‘Thing’?

There is no question that our food system is broken. The way we farm, the way we process, sell, buy and eat food has become an exercise in a polluted environment and polluted, undernourished bodies. Against this backdrop the word ‘organic’ is sometimes waived like a flag – or worn like a magic cloak – […]

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02 Jun 2018

What’s in a Name? The Battle for Food Authenticity, Integrity and Sustainability

How we talk about food dictates how we perceive it, how we respond to it, buy it, cook and eat it, but increasingly also how we produce it. Most chefs and many others in food service hold the notion of ‘provenance’ as important. It’s regarded as near synonymous with notions of ‘truth’, ‘integrity’ and ‘honesty’. […]

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12 Apr 2018

Something Fishy About Sustainable Fish, Chef?

As a nation, the UK is eating more fish than ever before. That is, potentially, a boon for health, but there are problems too. Much of our fish is being caught by destructive methods which are devastating populations of wild fish. What is more, our oceans are a mire of pollutants, many of which accumulate […]

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27 Feb 2017

Stirring the Supply Chain Pot

It is truly amazing that we can get so much food to so many on any given day. But, as the food supply chain grows larger, more complex and more competitive, it is also a place where things get lost, where information gets obscured or glossed over and key issues can get pushed aside. I […]

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