You are eating horsemeat: or there are 450 places where something could go wrong with your food

Horse meat.

Pig bung.

Rockfish.

What do these three things have in common?

Or maybe your first question is "what the eff is pig bung?" Let me explain. This week, three stories came to my attention. Two because they're making headlines, and one because it was on "This American Life" two weeks ago and I only just listened to it this morning.

Horse meat: Europe is horrified to discover that its beef supply has some horse meat in it. In some cases traces, in some cases up to 80%. Of what was supposed to be beef burger meat. Salon does a great job of covering the issue and it implications.  Now the fact that horse is being eaten is not what should horrify in my opinion, though I suspect for many people that is the case. What should horrify is stuff like this, from Salon:

"While the explanation of where some of the horse meat could have come from is straightforward, how it got to dinner plates is not. As Lichfield explains, “It came from abattoirs in Romania through a dealer in Cyprus working through another dealer in Holland to a meat plant in the south of France which sold it to a French-owned factory in Luxembourg which made it into frozen meals sold in supermarkets in 16 countries.”

Leading to: "There are 450 places where something could go wrong before your food gets into your hands."

Soda news

You know I always come back to soda.

First things first: my Mama bought me a Soda Stream. Have been meaning to get one for oh-so-long now and am the happy owner of this spaceshipesque contraption. No more recycling of plastic seltzer bottles, a behavior that had been filling me with a lot of guilt. You can mix in flavor packets to your homemade seltzer, but I will not be doing that. That is weird. I will squeeze in a real live lemon.

And: speaking of a local supply of clean water, you might be interested in this op-ed piece from Jared Diamond about big companies--like Coca Cola--and how he doesn't think they are pure evil after all. We could go around the block about that one, I suppose. I myself believe in compassionate capitalism. Did I make that term up? I'll have my research intern check it out. OK, I have not research intern, you got me.

Anyway, it's really interesting to me how companies are getting in on the sustainability game because they damn well have to. Cocal-Cola is made of water, and water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world. Will Coke compete with agriculture for water use?

As Diamond explains: "Coca-Cola’s survival compels it to be deeply concerned with problems of water scarcity, energy, climate change and agriculture. One company goal is to make its plants water-neutral, returning to the environment water in quantities equal to the amount used in beverages and their production. Another goal is to work on the conservation of seven of the world’s river basins, including the Rio Grande, Yangtze, Mekong and Danube — all of them sites of major environmental concerns besides supplying water for Coca-Cola."

Marion Nestle takes him to task on her blog (I love her moxie and smarts and sass. Ahhhh): "We need some critical thinking here. If Diamond gave any thought at all to what Coca-Cola produces – bottled water and sodas – he would surely have to agree that less of both would be good for our own health and that of the planet."