Articles

Flea powder probably isn’t something you think often about. But with some frighteningly toxic ingredients you should: they can be deadly for you and your pets. By Pat Thomas The pet care industry is big business. In Europe pet owners spend around £10 billion ($18 billion) on products for their animal companions while in the […]

Christmas dinner means only one thing for millions of us: turkey. But the intensively reared and genetically manipulated birds that most will consume this holiday season leave a nasty taste in the mouth. By Pat Thomas At a time of year when we are supposed to be practising good will, spare a thought for the […]

Biodiversity. It’s this year’s big green word. Yet when we think of biodiversity we think mostly along the lines of plants, animals and insects. This beautifully illustrated book reminds us that human diversity is a vital, but often overlooked link in that chain. These days when we talk about learning from other cultures we often […]

It’s the condiment of choice for a million fast-food outlets and a staple sauce in homes around the world, but there’s more to tomato ketchup than meets the eye, says Pat Thomas In Britain we like a bit of sauce. Especially on our chips. Our taste for tomato ketchup is such that we currently spend […]

Spices don’t simply add flavour to your food – they also aid digestion, protect against bacteria and prevent a range of illnesses Spices generally add a more pungent taste to foods. Wherever possible, it is best to buy the whole spice and grind or crush it yourself. This way the aroma will be stronger and […]

As long as we can’t see it, it isn’t there. This is the kind of infantile logic, applied to the largely invisible destruction of our seas, that Paul Greenberg addresses in this really excellent book. Through a forensic exploration of the overexploitation of four of the most commercially popular fish – tuna, salmon, sea bass […]

Hunger drives us. Appetite is our motivation. The result, as this book suggests, is not always in our best interests. The premise of Pandora’s Seed is that switching from a hunter-gather culture to an agrarian one – probably driven by climatic changes which made food more scarce – set off a series of events which […]

‘Straight talk from an energy insider’ – declares the subtitle of John Hofmeister’s new book. And that may well be the problem. Hofmeister, a former director for Shell and a current director of several oil exploration and development companies, has a necessarily narrow view of both the problems and the solutions, and limited insight into […]

Controversial proposals for the first UK ‘superdairy’ at Nocton, in Lincolnshire areabout to be re-submitted to the planning authorities. In the face of accumulating data that intensive factory-style livestock production is cruel and polluting, the US is beginning to question the wisdom of this type of farming. Pat Thomas asks, why on earth would the […]

How to make your food your medicine and medicine your food, starting with six common herbs you can use in your recipes and everyday cooking The smell of our food is inexorably linked to our enjoyment of it. In fact, taste and smell are the two most directly linked of our senses. Aroma is the […]