The creation of the modern loaf is an industrial process that uses a cocktail of artificial ingredients - but for taste, bite and goodness, nothing beats the old ways. Laura Sevier meets a baker bidding to become the saviour of our daily bread
In the last few years the Ecologist has written extensively on the flu – both the garden variety that strikes us on an annual basis and the wider threat of avian influenza, H5N1.
A host of communal vegetable gardens are springing up in the concrete heart of East London. Ben Willis meets the woman coaxing life from the urban jungle
Most mass-produced pudding wouldn't know real, healthy, organic ingredients if it saw them. Laura Sevier meets the Finlays, who are putting the 'nice' back into ice cream
It’s fresh, organic and locally produced. It’s hospital food, but not as we know it – yet. Dixe Wills meets the catering manager who’s transforming the canteen kitchen
Fruit and veg box schemes used to be the preserve of ‘deep-greens’. Now everyone’s in on the act, however, is green shopping becoming greenwashing, asks Matilda Lee
The community supports the farmer and the farmer supports the community. Why isn't everyone taking part in the latest agricultural revolution, wonders Ed Hamer
With vast areas decimated by industrial farming, the salad days are over for mass-produced olive oil. Laura Sevier looks at the effect its rise in popularity has had on the European landscape, and at some more sustainable brands.
Allotments are good for the soul and enjoying a resurgence in interest, says Tony Baldry, which is why local councils and developers should be required to grow their own
What could be more cheerful than this ubiquitous breakfast fruit? But if you’re not buying them Fairtrade and organic, argues Ed Hamer, then you’re buying into a modern agricultural scandal
Expelled from Eden and adrift amid the miracles of modern living, going back to nature is the only way to stay sane and healthy in this mad, bad world, says Fergus Drennan
The Seeds of Change trademark was created in the 1980s by a small organic seed cooperative from Santa Fe, New Mexico, which set out ‘to help people and future generations improve their lives and enjoy wholesome, natural, chemical-free foods’. Seeds of Change expanded its enterprise in 1996 to include a range of organic soups, cereal bars, pastas and sauces. A year later it was bought by Mars and launched in the UK in 1999.
In 1952, Rachel Rowlands’ mother Dinah established the UK’s first organic dairy farm near Aberystwyth with a small herd of Guernsey cows, working ‘in harmony with nature, the elements, the seasons and wildlife’. In 1966, Rachel took over the farm and founded the Rachel’s Organic Dairy brand, which was sold to Horizon, a subsidiary of Dean Foods, in 1999.
Founded in 1991 by Craig Sams and his wife Josephine Fairley, Green & Black’s brand was conceived to represent the ‘green’ concerns of its founders and the ‘black’ of the cocoa bean.