The Dairy Show

The Honey Bee and Colony Collapse Disorder

I just watched a great episode of Nature on PBS about honey bees and colony collapse disorder (CCD).  If you are not familiar with CCD it is a phenomenon where whole hives of bees just disappear.  This is a very serious problem, because bee's pollinate about 1/3 of our crops.  This really an incredibly interesting show.  It not only goes into the problem of CCD and how we are trying to figure out why it occurs, but also provides great information about what bees do, the structure of their colonies, etc.  There is also a fascinating part about how people are hand pollinating pear trees in China, because they lost all their bees.  Fortunately you can watch the whole thing online, so check it out on the PBS site.

Will this Catch On?

There is video story online in the Wall Street Journal today about camel milk.  Its about a woman who is trying to get camel milk available in the US for the treatment of disease and a farmer in North Carolina who is trying to help her.  Looks like its pretty tough to milk a camel.  I just don't see camel milk becoming very popular in the US anytime soon for multiple reasons, but check out the interesting video

Doctors and Sustainable Food

Three of the leading causes of death in the United States, Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes are all heavily influenced by diet.  These diseases are very likely preventable by changing what we eat.  Unfortunately, to many of us continue to maintain diets that promote, instead of prevent these diseases. Also health care providers have really not made prevention of disease through diet a priority. This is understandable though as there have been many mixed messages about what we should eat and getting people to change is very difficult.  Well hopefully this is going to change.  About 1 month ago today, the AMA passed a new policy resolution (download it here) in support of practices in health care facilities and education by providers about sustainable food.  The new resolutions state:

Coming Soon Dairy Show Episode 3--Rainbeau Ridge and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

We have a full length episode of The Dairy Show coming out in the beginning of August September (Sorry of the Delay, but stayed tuned because its going to be great).  This episode will feature Rainbeau Ridge, a farm in Bedford Hills New York, where owner Lisa Schwartz makes amazing goats milk cheeses.  We will follow the cheese down the road to Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, where Chef de Cuisine Josh Lawler will show us how to cook with it.

Special Edition 3 - In the Kitchen with Christina Tosi @ Momofuku Milk Bar

Watch it on the iPhone

Fun Old-Fashioned Style Video about Conventional vs. Organic Farming

Check out this old fashioned film strip style video from the UK about Organic vs. Conventional Farming.  Actually it appears that in the UK they call "conventional", "Intensive."  Maybe that's a better term?

I found this video on organicnation.tv, a cool video blog all about sustainable food.