This month, in a first-of-its-kind study, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) will begin digging through the trash bins of residents and businesses in three American cities. Because it turns out we don't actually know that much about food waste. We know that Americans waste about 36 million tons of food a year, but we don’t know the nitty-gritty details about individual behavior.

The largest hunger-fighting organization in the nation’s capital has put food-donating retailers on notice: no more candy, sugary sodas, or sheet cakes. As key as donations are to the nonprofit’s bottom line, the Capital Area Food Bank recently told retailers that, beginning this fall, it won’t accept free food that comes at a cost to recipients—many of whom struggle with obesity and diabetes as much as hunger.

I guest edited EdibleDC's first Sustainability issue in the Summer of 2016. The content of the entire magazine, including several pieces I wrote for it, focused on the Chesapeake Bay and how to eat with its best in mind. Flip through the issue here.

With breeds like Ossabaw, Mulefoot and Large Black, Spring House Farm’s pigs are the makings of farm-to-table fables. But trucking the immense black pigs from the farm in Lovettsville to the butcher to the chefs—most of whom wanted chops, not noses or tails—became a money-losing endeavor a few years in, says farmer Andrew Crush.

slightly bitter, slightly sweet, fully invigorating—of the aperitif. Just as taste buds grow to love the bitter and bracing later in life, our cocktail culture is coming of age—and seeking something a bit more bittersweet. The signposts are appearing on menus and behind bars across the region under a categorical heading the French tell us we’ve been ignoring for far too long: Aperitifs.

Peanut butter got me through that dreaded first trimester of pregnancy. When all other protein sources made my stomach churn, I spooned it onto bananas, toast and oatmeal. I even put it on carrots. I ate more than I usually would, partly because I love it (eat what you crave, right?) and partly because I’d read that early introduction of allergy-inducing foods — even in utero — could help prevent allergies later.

Tyler Cunningham has been running the mower at Red Wiggler Farm for 15 years, and he’s good at it. He can mow back overgrown edges and carve narrow strips into fields of hairy vetch and rye, defining rows for spring plantings, with ease. He can even fix the mower when it breaks, no small feat for a 56-year-old with developmental disabilities, one who’s found a career and identity as a farmer. Practically predicting the locavore movement that would make its community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares a hit, the farm was founded in 1996 based on two tenets: that people with developmental disabilities need meaningful employment and that there’s nothing more meaningful than growing food for people…

When an unexpected snowstorm caused a couple to pull off the highway just north of Warrenton one Saturday night in February, they followed the signs to Airlie. A couple of years ago, they wouldn’t have made it up the driveway of the sprawling retreat center, past the signs warning “private property” and “registered guests only.”.

Twice a year, a handful of representatives from as many seed companies gather ‘round a toy-sized tractor to draw numbers from it. It’s the NFL draft of the seed-growing world tucked into a fertile corner of Washington state–and it’s pretty mild-mannered, in comparison. The numbers drawn from the tractor determine who gets first pick in the field, represented by a sprawling map on the wall, marked with–you guessed it–brass thumbtacks and red yarn, the same way it has been done for the last 60 years.

Smile, leave a big tip and other notes on dining with an infant from Whitney Pipkin. There are two types of eating-out experiences when you bring a newborn along: the ones in which the baby falls asleep in the car seat on the way to dinner and snoozes soundly through the entire meal, and the ones in which she does not.

Letting a glass of orange wine breathe at his elbow, Mamuka Tsereteli scoured the Japanese menu at Daikaya for something to accompany it. The wine from Georgia (the former Soviet republic, not the American state) looked the shade of brandy but tasted nothing like it, with tongue-smacking tannins, dried apricot and golden raisins overwhelming any anticipated sweetness.

A wide grin spreads across Marland Buckner's face as he walks toward an overgrown apple orchard. Clusters of ginger-gold spheres dot the trees' upper branches, waiting to be picked. A small herd of goats is basking in the midsummer sun just beyond their shade, taking a break from their daily duty of eating whatever apples and greenery they can reach on hind legs. Shaking hands with the three farmers he's hired to care for these animals and this land, known as ForeverView Farms, Buckner steps back to breathe in the view, letting the city and its abstract food policies give way to the tangible scene before him. "So this is how local feeds the world," he says, gesturing to the nearly 40-acre piece of land he bought two years ago.

Citing youth obesity as a threat to national security, military leaders hope to turn the tide, starting with schools.

If you’ve read anything about the District’s food policy council since it was christened last year, it might have been that the gregarious celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn was named its chair. But behind the curtain of local government, a red-bespectacled urban planner is putting that council’s wishes into action—one email at a time.

The avocados are too small. The apples don’t stand up on their own. The carrots have a little too much, shall we say, character. But Hungry Harvest's customers don’t seem to mind. In fact, wanting such foods to go to good use is one of the reasons they signed up to receive a weekly share of the so-called“ ugly produce” from the Columbia, Maryland–based startup.

(June 27, 2017) Can you make a living selling at farmers’ markets? Yes, says the Maryland Farmers’ Market Association, but it’s not as easy as setting up a stand and selling out. Helping producers navigate the unique economics of selling at farmers markets is a goal of the organization, which recently issued a new guide to that end.