Category: Food Issues

  • Petition to Make School Cookery Classes Part of the Curriculum

    Promoting good food education is one of the principle directives of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild and the Uplift petition, recently launched by member Darina Allen of the Ballymaloe Cookery School, gets right to the heart of that principle. “To affect change, we need to gather thousands of signatures to persuade the Government and Department…

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  • Why do we not teach children how to cook and feed themselves in school?

    Our school children are missing out on learning the vital life skill of how to cook and feed themselves well. Chef, writer, food campaigner and Guild member Michelle Darmody is determined to change this. Click on the articles below to read more: “Why do we not teach children how to cook and feed themselves in…

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  • Not The Full Irish

    Katy McGuinness explores the true origins of ‘Irish’ foods in this article published in the Irish Independent. It all started with a packet of sliced chicken… Last autumn, in the course of researching an article that I was writing about food labelling in Ireland, I paid a visit to my local supermarket looking for examples…

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  • Urgent Concerns on Food Sovereignity

    The Irish Senate has passed a motion calling on the Irish government to reject the provisional application of the CETA (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement ) with Canada at the Council of Ministers meeting on October 18 2016. The Irish Food Writers’ Guild welcomes the Senate’s vote and congratulates independent Senator Alice Mary Higgins on the…

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  • Social Responsibility

    An edited version of this feature first appeared in the Sunday Times on 18th October 2015. By Corinna Hardgrave / www.corinnahardgrave.com. Ask any of the world’s top chefs what they think is the most important food trend of the moment, and the answer will not be farm to fork or foraging; it is food waste.…

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  • TTIP Agreement

    The Irish Food Writers’ Guild shares many of the concerns expressed by fellow Guild member Darina Allen in the following statement on behalf of Slow Food Ireland. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement poses a serious threat to the well-regulated Irish and European food industry. One of the objectives of the TTIP negotiations…

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  • Food Fraud

    Joe McNamee, from the Irish Examiner, reports on the disconcerting topic of food fraud in Ireland and a recent example of it. Lucy Deegan and Mark Cribben, of Ballyhoura Mushrooms, producers of absolutely superb, multiple-award winning Irish-grown exotic mushrooms, have yet again come across a restaurant menu falsely claiming to feature their award-winning produce. It…

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  • Irish Food Culture: A Game Of Two Halves, Where Those At The Bottom Will Suffer The Most

    By Suzanne Campbell. As the horsemeat scandal widens to include giant food labels like Nestle and the world’s biggest beef processor JBS, again we see food fraud happening not at farm level but at secondary processing level and the trade of ‘beef’ in a snakes and ladders game encompassing a global set of players. In…

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  • Genetic Modification – Is it Time to Open Up the Debate?

    By Leslie Williams. Please note: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and should not be seen as a reflection of the views of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild Mention Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) to most people in Ireland and you get a fairly predictable reaction along the lines…

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  • Biohackers

    By Ross Golden-Bannon. People concerned about the infiltration of the organic food supply with GMO seeds blown on to pristine, organic crops might want to consider a new hobby which has sprung up across the USA: DIY genetic modification. Equipped with a plethora of knowledge from the internet and equipment ordered online the new hobbyists…

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