Starbucks: people either love ‘em or loathe ‘em. My husband likes their coffee and admires their business brains. I, on the other hand, can’t stand them for their homogenized, yuppie style. Having grown up in grunge-era Seattle, once a land of artsy coffee shops crammed with kitschy sofas and local color, cookie-cutter Starbucks look to me like a department store: void of soul and chock-full of useless merchandise.

But how bad is Starbucks, really? I decided to find out.

1. Clean water is such a precious commodity in the world …

Tags: barista , coffee , corporate power , disposables , drink , fair trade , food and beverage , greenwash , starbucks , waste

25 Comments |

Link to this post |

|

Bookmark

What do you get when you cross a grassroots movement with a food industry fearful of losing its influence? Bogus studies, campaigns of misinformation and opinion pieces filled with myth and vitriol.

You may have noticed an uptick this year in news reporting that organic food isn’t really better for you, opinion pieces by conventional farmers saying that they are tired of being demonized by “agri-intellectuals”, and guilt-inducing ads by Monsanto in highbrow publications like the New Yorker touting the company’s ability to feed the …

Tags: battle of ideas , consumer power , conventional farming , corporate power , organic food , sustainable agriculture

10 Comments |

Link to this post |

|

Bookmark