“At Taco Bell we have a long tradition of taking as little as possible from the natural world,” says faux Bell spokesperson Paul Lancaster, who says Taco Bell’s “eco-friendly” beef has always contained “85 percent gluten filler, 8 percent petroleum-based grease flavoring,” and “4 percent meat.” However, with the new green menu on board, that 4 percent meat has been replaced by a “simple chemical adhesive.” No wasting food or water on cattle: wow!

Save me an Ultimate Grande Crunchador.

As anyone who tries to eat locally soon finds out, condiments can be a sticking point. Finding locally-made salt is all-but-impossible in most areas, and good luck finding local black pepper or cardamom.

Capers are also nigh-on impossible to source locally. Made from the unripened flower buds of a plant that grows wild all over the Mediterranean, they travel a long way to get to your plate. But, unlike salt, there’s a great substitute that can flourish almost anywhere in North America: pickled nasturtium buds. I had a chance to taste some recently. Pickled in salty brine, they taste almost exactly like capers, but better: piquant, peppery, juicy. And they’re huge, about the size of a malted milk ball instead of a pea.

Summer is the perfect time to pick the buds, according to Sandor Ellix Katz, author of the book Wild Fermentation. Look for a crinkled, brain-like nodule at the base of bloomed-out nasturtium flowers. Pick them, soak them for about a week in a solution of 3/4 tablespoon of table salt for each cup of water, and use them in sandwiches, salads, pastas, and whatever else you’d use capers in.

So all your lettuce mysteriously died but you ended up with a bumper crop of tomatoes. Now what? Enter Veggie Trader, a new site that connects home gardeners with one another to trade their surplus fruits and vegetables.

Here’s the drill:
• Register for the site (free)
• Post your veggies and browse others’ via zip code
• Negotiate a trade in your ’hood

A few things to be aware of when using the site: You are responsible for knowing about state quarantines (there’s currently one in the SF Bay Area), licensing, taxes, and all the local bureaucracy in your area. The site also recommends not trading out of your state because laws vary so widely. And you are forbidden from trading meat, eggs, or dairy items.

If you’re into the idea of community trading, bartering, and local food supplies, you might want to check out Fallen Fruit as well. It’s a site that’s aiming to eventually map all of the public fruit trees in the United States. And here’s what our etiquette columnist Helena Echlin learned from the site’s cofounder about picking fruit off your neighbors’ trees.

Packaged foods are a new category on the rating site, which scores products on their potential health hazards, as well as a company’s environmental performance and social impact. For the new food items, GoodGuide offers some additional nutritional analysis. The site seems to draw its data from reliable sources, and could be helpful in guiding choices in the supermarket aisle.

Though in some ways it might drive me out of the grocery store entirely: The breakdown of info on Brown Cow revealed that the brand is manufactured by Stonyfield Farm (whose yogurt got the top rating), which is owned by Groupe Danone (or mostly owned anyway), maker of Dannon yogurt. Maybe I’ll just start making my own.

Environmental Health News reports that vegetables fertilized with livestock manure absorb small amounts of the drugs routinely given to American farm animals to increase growth and reduce infection. Even organic produce isn’t necessarily safe, since there are no regulations in place regarding antibiotics in manure used as fertilizer.

Steve Roach, a public health program director for Food Animal Concerns Trust, told EHN that “‘the clearest public health implication from treating livestock with antibiotics is the development of resistant bacteria that reduces the effectiveness of human medicine.”

Root veggies are probably the most risky, because they absorb the bulk of their nutrients from the soil, and we eat the root—as opposed to the leaves—of the plants. Crops destined for processing, like corn, are pretty safe; and composting manure before spreading it on the fields can help reduce the levels of antibiotics. But if you want to be sure your vegetables are free of antibiotics, you might try buying from a veganic farm.

It’s already debatable whether any fish can, or should, be labeled organic. The USDA previously ruled out all wild fish: The Chicago Tribune explains the agency’s logic: “The whole notion of ‘wild’ is at odds with the government’s rigorous criteria for classifying organic livestock production. Wild, after all, can’t be controlled.” But somewhat perversely, the USDA says organic farmed fish can eat fish meal that’s made from wild fish. (Wild fish that aren’t threatened species would be allowed to make up 25 percent of farmed feed.) That’s angered the Consumers Union, which says that allowing partially nonorganic feed would set a lower standard for fish than other organic foods, amounting to what the CU calls “a dangerous precedent.”

In any case, you won’t see organic fish soon: A USDA spokesman told Scientific American that there’s no timetable for taking up the recommendations. And even if the criteria are approved, organic fish won’t be easy to find: So few fish farms meet the proposed standards that George Leonard, a marine ecologist on the advisory board, told the Post the criteria are essentially for “a sustainable farming practice that does not yet exist.”

But what’s truly remarkable is that the Guardian also features an online-only 44-photo step-by-step guide for readers who want to butcher their own lamb at home. There’s some seriously mounting enthusiasm for amateur butchering in the States, but I can’t imagine an American newspaper doing something similar.

Such rules would eliminate industrial organic milk operations, which feed cows organic grain but keep them inside feedlots. When news broke about these farms several years ago, the USDA heard about it: In a public comment period, the agency received 80,500 comments, and only 28 thought the rules should not be tightened.

An opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor argues that “[t]he problem of piracy in Somalia originated about a decade ago because of disgruntled fishermen.” Because Somalia wasn’t able to police its own waters, foreign fishing fleets had mercilessly moved in: The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that there were some 700 illegal industrial fishing vessels off Somalia’s coast. “That prompted local fishermen to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. The success of these early raids in the mid-1990s persuaded many young men to hang up their nets in favor of AK-47s.” As a separate op-ed by the president of the Conservation Strategy Fund puts it, “Since then fish stocks have plummeted worldwide, shipping has exploded and ships have become much easier and rewarding to catch than fish.”

Also, we gave a shout-out to Sky Full of Bacon’s meet-your-friendly-pig-head video last month. The same excellent site has a video narrative—“There Will Be Pork”—of the first half of Sula’s story. (The second half should be posted shortly.) Once again, recommended.

What would they say if they had an uninterrupted moment?

The list goes long on food and agriculture issues, with the regulars weighing in: Anna Lappé calls for a Food Corps, Ann Cooper (recent subject of CHOW’s school lunch Obsessive video) for increasing funding for the National School Lunch program, Michael Pollan for a food policy czar. But there’s also a lot from lesser-known folks: Zoe Bradbury on the need for more young farmers, the Ethicurean’s Bonnie Azab Powell on restructuring the USDA and appointing a head who’s not from Big Ag, Raj Patel on the global injustice of American food policy. And since Obama, somewhat amazingly, appears to have read Pollan’s open letter to him, offering the next president public advice seems, well, not completely pointless. We’ll see if he shows up in the comments section.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether shoppers are still willing to pay a premium for organic (or whether they’ll go out back and join the freegans). As the Big Money notes, “No grocer is more at the mercy of the economy’s whims than Whole Foods. And no grocer is more exposed to long-term harm from what will hopefully be a short-lived recession.” Last week, this “onetime Wall Street darling” (subscription required), as the Wall Street Journal calls it, announced that its profits last quarter dropped by a remarkable 96 percent. Meanwhile, the company is struggling to absorb its new Wild Oats stores while simultaneously fighting the Federal Trade Commission, which is still trying to stop the Wild Oats acquisition: The FTC’s case against Whole Foods is scheduled to go to court in February.

In this economic climate, the company’s biggest problem may be its nickname: Whole Paycheck. That’s why, according to the Journal, this summer “it launched a ‘Whole Deal’ newsletter and Web site filled with tips on saving money at its stores. It also has been offering customers budget-focused store tours.” The Journal doesn’t say if those tour guides have succeeded in keeping a straight face.

No, thank God, this isn’t this year’s new hip children’s book. It’s the subject of Samuel Fromartz’s story in the current Edible Portland on the challenges of organic and local distribution, a rapidly growing industry. (Well, it was growing, at least. Registration required to view link.) Fromartz looks at distributors on both coasts, but his primary focus is the Organically Grown Company (OGC), an Oregon worker-and-farmer-owned distributor. Its dank warehouse is a long way from folk musicians at the farmers market, but it “represents a distant ideal of food distribution,” he writes. And the model OGC is creating is critical to getting local food beyond the white-tableclothed farmers market menu.

The company’s a fascinating case study: Back in the 1980s, farmers in Oregon realized they were cannibalizing each other’s business. “To resolve this no-win game, the farmers came together to coordinate planting schedules, so that everyone’s broccoli wouldn’t be harvested the same week. They also divvied up markets, so they could be assured of sales.” To keep customers year-round, they stretched their original mission—importing organic bananas from Mexico, say—but they didn’t abandon their ideals: Their trucks are biodiesel and the company’s waste target is zero. And for every box of bananas, OGC donates 60 cents to support schools and health programs for their Mexican growers.