The Daily Croissant

"The typical nutrition facts packaging label shows consumers a miniscule fraction of the estimated 100,000+ biological active constituents of food. How do you tell if it may actually help promote health and protect against disease?

It is estimated that North Americans spend in excess of $50 billion annually on diet products and self-help books and videos. However, given that Western society continues to see increased obesity and other “diseases of affluence” such as Type II diabetes, coronary heart disease and certain forms of cancer, much of that money is being wasted. We believe that a significant part of the problem is that individuals who want to make the correct nutritional choices for themselves and their families are faced with a deluge of confusing and conflicting nutritional advice. The goal of this website is to present you with the results of the latest in nutrition and health research, presented in a way that is easy to understand."

The eye attachment station.

It takes six minutes to make a Peep. Ingredients are mixed, air is injected and the emerging Peep is blasted with a sugar shower and decorated with two tiny eyes made of edible wax. But for such an innocent marshmallow-and-sugar pastel candy, the Peep is surprisingly polarizing.

Allan Benton is the god of bacon and slow cured hams.

Since 1973, he has operated Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams from a modest, green-painted cinderblock building just off Highway 411 in Madisonville, Tennessee. It’s a little spit of a town in the eastern part of the state backdropped by the Smoky Mountains.

Allan has gained nationwide fame. His bacon, ham and prosciutto are sacred and used in the kitchens of chefs and foodies.

[Text by Tanner C. Latham]

"Walmart is set to sell a new form of genetically-engineered (GE) sweet corn as early as this summer. Monsanto’s Bt sweet corn contains three GE traits that have never before been consumed directly by humans, and have not been subjected to thorough safety testing. There will be no labeling whatsoever indicating that the corn is a genetically modified organism.

Most GE corn is not fit for human consumption unless it is heavily processed into products like high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, or corn oil. This means that consumers can avoid consuming GE corn simply by choosing not to eat processed foods with corn-derived ingredients. However, Monstanto’s Bt sweet corn will be sold to consumers as whole ears on the cob and will be found in the produce section."

"The next step up from hydroponics is the orbital space farm, as envisaged by artist Frank Tinsley in 1954. The great coils you see in the giant dish contain chlorella algae; the wonder food of Future Past that was, along with yeast, supposed to replace bread as the staple of all mankind. 

Back in the 1950s, this didn't seem like such a crazy idea. On paper, chlorella looked like a winner. Not only was the microorganism 50 percent protein with the complete set of amino acids, but it was also chock full of calories, fats and vitamins. Furthermore, all you needed to grow it was sunshine, water and carbon dioxide. And it grew in incredible quantities with one pilot plant projecting yields of 40 tons of dry weight protein per acre. At this rate, a farm the size of Rhode Island would feed the entire planet and cultivating one fifth of the Earth's surface would not only provide food, but all of the fuels needed for every major industry on the planet. All that needed to be overcome were "minor technical difficulties."...

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"You wake up to cereal made from midwestern corn. You slip on cotton clothes, get into a vehicle fueled partly by ethanol and dine later on chicken and rice—all made possible by crops from the Mississippi River Basin, a vast area that stretches from Montana to New York and drains all or parts of 31 states.

The part of the basin east of the Mississippi River largely relies on rain to grow crops; farmers on the west side irrigate much, much more. All told, it's among the most productive farming regions in the world."