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New York, NY (CNS) - Singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow will be releasing her own very "Americana" line of denim jeans and shirts in Dillard's department stores on August 15. The multi-Grammy Award winning artist's clothing line, Bootheel Trading Company, is inspired by western and vintage style. The jeans are designed to be eco-friendly, using only fair-trade cotton and denim. Crow has partnered with Western Glove Works for the affordable fashion line. The most expensive jeans is retailed at $69, and the shirts start at $29. The complete Fall '08 collection will be available nationwide at Dillard's branches and some boutique stores...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2008) — New research in the latest issue of the Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows there is no evidence to support the argument that organic food is better than food grown with the use of pesticides and chemicals. Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals. But the research by Dr Susanne Bügel and colleagues from the Department of Human Nutrition, University of Copenhagen, shows there is no clear...

There has been a trend in recent years for liberals to try to rebrand themselves as conservatives. The purpose is to con people into thinking that they somehow uphold traditional values. One of the more laughable of these rebranding attempts has been put forward by one John Schwenkler, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. The very title of Schwenkler's Boston Globe article, "Eat Republican," along with the subtitle, "How an organic movement born in Berkeley exemplifies conservative values," sets the tone for the attempted con. Schwenkler leads off by attempting to convince us that someone...

How an organic movement born in Berkeley exemplifies conservative values ALICE WATERS SEEMS at first like an unlikely conservative. A veteran of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement who once cooked a $25,000-a-seat fund-raising dinner for Bill Clinton, she eagerly compares her campaign for "edible schoolyards" - where children grow, prepare, and eat fresh produce - with John F. Kennedy's attempt to improve physical fitness through mandatory exercise. Her dream of organic, locally and sustainably produced food in every school cafeteria, class credit for lunch hour, and required gardening time and cooking classes is as utopian as they come. The name she...

Over the past 20 years, Wisconsin-based Organic Valley has grown into the nation's largest organic cooperative, carving out a niche selling milk from small dairy farmers who treat their cows like members of the family. So imagine the shock within the organic food world when an industry watchdog group recently discovered Organic Valley quietly has been getting some of its milk from a giant Texas dairying operation with more than 5,000 cows. "Buying milk from this factory farm could potentially be catastrophic to our marketplace reputation," said Darlene Coehoorn, a longtime Organic Valley member from Rosendale, Wis., where she milks...

You buy organic because it's better for you and the environment because the produce is grown without pesticides or other potentially-harmful chemicals. But what if those organic vegetables came from China? Would you serve them to your family? It turns out you may already have. I found packages of frozen organic veggies from China at many local grocery stores, including PCC Natural Markets and Whole Foods. Whole Foods, the country's leader in organics, sells a variety of frozen organic produce from China - peas, spinach, asparagus - under its "365 House" brand. People who buy organic expect something special, but...

Shoppers to 'abandon organic food to cut bills' By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 2:29AM BST 20/05/2008 Middle-class shoppers will be forced to abandon organic and fair trade food as inflation continues to climb, a new report warns. Retailers have not yet reported any fall off in organic food sales Shoppers who have previously been willing to pay up to 50 per cent more for organic meat, or fair trade coffee, could soon ignore ethical concerns in favour of keeping their shopping bills down. The prediction comes from the influential forecasting group, the Ernst & Young ITEM club,...

(MIAMI) -- It used to be that you could only find organc food in specialty health food stores. But that has changed as the organic industry is proving to be big business. Now, China is getting in on the action exporting millions of dollars of organic food to the United States. But in the wake of lead in toys and tainted toothpaste, many consumers are wondering just how organic anything from China can be. Pinecrest Mom Ivy Milian decided to eat only organic foods about 18 years ago and has seen its popularity go mainstream. She usually shops at Wild...

By now, the collard greens, kale, chard, peppers and eggplants should be in the ground, along with the carrots and corn. The latest planting season is pretty much over at Barking Cat Farm, a tiny grower in Heath, Texas, which is owned and operated by Laurie Bostic and Kim Martin, two former engineers. “You’d expect two engineers to go into farming about as much as you’d expect a cat to bark,” is their explanation for the name of their thriving micro-business, which sells its organic produce and cut flowers to Dallas restaurants and florists and direct to local consumers. And...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- While many companies are now rushing to "go green," recent surveys show American consumers are getting turned off by the organic hype for three reasons: price, skepticism and confusion. The percentage of consumers who believe organic products are good for them is down to 45%, while those who believe they're good for the environment has fallen to 48%, according to the latest survey from consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail. Both measures stood at a 54% approval rating two years ago. Higher cost of organic products versus mass market alternatives is a primary deterrent to many consumers,...

Common Organic Compound Found In Many Household Products May Pose Health Risk To Breast CellsBisphenol A, a chemical that leaches into food and beverages from many consumer products, causes normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to express genes characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells. (Credit: iStockphoto/Beata Becla) ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2008) — Bisphenol A, a chemical that leaches into food and beverages from many consumer products, causes normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to express genes characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells. That’s the finding of a “Priority Report” in the latest issue of the journal Cancer Research, the official journal of...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2008) — Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn have detected for the first time a molecule closely related to an amino acid: amino acetonitrile. The organic molecule was found with a 30 metre radio telescope in Spain and two radio interferometers in France and Australia in the "Large Molecule Heimat", a giant gas cloud near the galactic centre in the constellation Sagittarius (Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press).  Amino acetonitrile. (Credit: Sven Thorwirth, MPIfR) The "Large Molecule Heimat" is a very dense, hot gas clump within the star forming region Sagittarius B2....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An organic molecule has been spotted for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system, a key step toward possibly finding signs of life on a distant world, scientists said. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope found methane in the atmosphere of a planet called HD 189733b, which is about the size of Jupiter and is 63 light-years from Earth, they said in research published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Organic molecules contain carbon-hydrogen bonds and can be found in living things. Methane, for instance, is found in natural gas and...

Widespread contamination of U.S. corn, soybeans and other crops by genetically engineered varieties is threatening the purity of organic and natural food products and driving purveyors of such specialty products to new efforts to protect their markets, industry leaders said this week. A range of players, from dairy farmers to natural food retailers, are behind an effort to introduce testing requirements and standards for certification aimed at keeping contamination at bay. That goal is rapidly becoming harder, however, as planting of biotech corn, soybeans, and other crops expands across the United States. "Now there is a real shortage of organic...

Organic molecules found on alien world for first time 18:21 11 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Stephen Battersby The giant planet HD 189733b is too hot for its methane and water vapour to signal life (Illustration: Christophe Carreau/ESA)Tools Organic molecules – in the form of methane – have been detected on a planet outside our solar system for the first time. The giant planet lies too close to its parent star for the methane to signal life, but the detection offers hope that astronomers will one day be able to analyse the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds. Astronomers Mark Swain and...

New evidence supports premise that Earth produces endless supply ------------------ A study published in Science Magazine today presents new evidence supporting the abiotic theory for the origin of oil, which asserts oil is a natural product the Earth generates constantly rather than a "fossil fuel" derived from decaying ancient forests and dead dinosaurs. The lead scientist on the study – Giora Proskurowski of the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle – says the hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Lost City Hydrothermal Field were produced by the abiotic synthesis of...

(YAKIMA, Wash.) — It comes as no surprise to anyone that the number of organic farms is booming to meet consumer demand for healthy food. In Washington, a state known more for its apples than any other crop, there are 45 organic dairies. Five years ago, there were just two. The challenge has been feeding all of those cows. Acreage of organic forage, such as hay and alfalfa, has grown 40 percent in the past two years, yet isn't keeping pace with demand. In particular, high-protein crops like soybeans that are necessary feed for dairy cows are in short supply...

Five Easy Ways to Go Organic Switching to organic is tough for many families who don’t want to pay higher prices or give up their favorite foods. But by choosing organic versions of just a few foods that you eat often, you can increase the percentage of organic food in your diet without big changes to your shopping cart or your spending. The key is to be strategic in your organic purchases. Opting for organic produce, for instance, doesn’t necessarily have a big impact, depending on what you eat. According to the Environmental Working Group, commercially-farmed fruits and vegetables vary...

A superb article in the Australian popular science magazine Cosmos debunks the organic food and farming craze. On claims that organic is more nutritious, the article notes: A comprehensive review of some 400 scientific papers on the health impacts of organic foods, published by Faidon Magkos and colleagues in 2006 in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, concluded there was no evidence that eating organic food was healthier. Even if it can't be proved that eating organic is healthier, advocates claim it is nutritionally superior. Some studies, especially those reported by the organic farming advocate group, the...

I don't like to buy organic food products, and avoid them at all cost. It is a principled decision reached through careful consideration of effects of organic production practices on animal welfare and the environment. I buy regular food, rather than organic, for the benefit of my family. I care deeply about food being plentiful, affordable and safe. I grew up on a dairy farm, where my chores included caring for the calves and scrubbing the milking facilities. As a teenager, I was active in Future Farmers of America, and after college I took a job in Washington, D.C., on...