Tagged: NPR food

Here's some good news about Americans' diets: Most of us are getting sufficient amounts of key vitamins and minerals. That's the finding of a nutrition report just out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Vitamins A and D, folate, iron and iodine are just a few of the nutrients assessed in the nationwide survey, which uses data collected between 1999 and 2006. Overall, less than 10 percent of the population appeared deficient in each nutrient.

Community supported agriculture sounds so simple. Support a local farm, get to know your farmer, enjoy weekly deliveries of fresh produce, and rest easy knowing that you've voted for the local economy with your food dollars.

But as new CSAs spring up nationwide, many farmers are reinterpreting the idea – and that has traditionalists worried. One West Virginia farmer even runs a Facebook group to document what he calls "fake CSAs," which he says are misleading customers and diverting money away from local farms and farmers.

For most of American history, early spring meant a feast of shad. That tradition has faded, but young chefs are trying to slip the ritual back onto plates.

The earliest Americans from from Florida to Nova Scotia caught shad by the basketful as they swam back from the sea to spawn in their home rivers. The fresh, silvery fish was most certainly a delight after winter's dreary fare. The American shad's Latin name is clue to its allure: Alosa sapadissima, or most delicious herring.

American shad were a key food source for American Indians and later, colonists. New Yorker writer John McPhee called shad the "founding fish" because it fed so many key figures in American history, from William Penn to Abraham Lincoln.

Last week, 500 tacos appeared at the mayor's office in East Haven, Conn. But they weren't intended for a casual luncheon.

Instead, this truckload of tacos was meant to be a symbol of discontent. An immigration reform group sent the fare in protest to what they said was an insensitive comment from Mayor Joseph Maturo in reference to Latinos and tacos.

The Connecticut activists join a long line of protesters who've resorted to food in the name of public humiliation. Perhaps the most famous act was the disposal of 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in protest of taxation without representation.