Are Israelis eating a mouthful of pesticides for breakfast? If there’s one food group that Israelis love, it’s vegetables. In fact, all over the Middle East, vegetables are treated with love and presented at table in infinite artful ways. And people are picky about their produce, carefully inspecting each tomato and cucumber before consenting to […]
With so many reports of tainted, rotten food hitting the market, Lebanese consumers are desperate to source organic, pesticide-free food from responsible suppliers. And their options to do so are growing alongside their burgeoning demand. Our friends from Green Traveler Guides sent over a fabulous overview of the top cafes, markets and restaurants leading Lebanon’s […]
Is it creepy or clever to peddle insurance against baby’s first diseases? Sure, new parents get showered with adorable gifts and well-intended advice, but then the downpour of unsolicited marketing arrives: for baby gear, for college saving plans, and now, in Jordan, for baby blood banking. An unusual building is rising in the desert outside Amman, […]
With no where to run, undercover cameras expose the cruelty to animals in the Israeli meat industry. An Israel TV commercial about the Adom Adom (Red Red) meat packing company’s products seems pleasant enough. A smiling butcher shows a well dressed matron the wonderful meat cuts being offered by this company which claims to sell “real […]
As Turkey moves to build its first nuclear power plant, there are troubling signs that the country’s nuclear energy institute is not monitoring nuclear hazards carefully. An abandoned lead factory yard used as a playground by local children in Turkey’s western İzmir Province contains high levels of radiation, according to Greenpeace Turkey, yet the Turkish Nuclear […]
A healthier spin on the season’s traditional potato pancakes. Hannukah is one of the most fun holidays in the Jewish calendar, maybe because for a full eight days there’s a feeling of celebration in the air. Family folks often quit work early to be home in time for the candle-lighting ceremony, games with the kids […]
A back-to-the-land movement is blossoming in the Palestinian Authority, the United Nation’s newest nonmember observer state. “The Palestinian future is in the land.” Farmer Khader Khader said, standing in his organic olive grove in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail. Many Palestinian farmers are switching to organic farming methods, and selling their oil to […]
Author of the hugely popular cookbook Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi teamed up with co-chef Sami Tamimi to produce a cookbook that will dazzle, inspire, and satisfy your senses. Both men were born the same year in Jerusalem; Ottolenghi in the western Jewish side and Tamimi in Arab east Jerusalem. They never met until they were in […]
Ordering a foul or falafel sandwich at any fast food chain or street vendor in Cairo puts consumers one step closer to triple bypass surgery. This has less to do with the food itself than it does with how it is prepared, since Egyptian cuisine, a fluid, nebulous thing fraught with the influence of so many […]
Investing in African Agriculture This past April, MASHAV, Israel’s agency for international development cooperation, signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The memorandum is aimed at addressing food security through partnerships with farmers in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Israel will contribute expertise in irrigation, water technologies, agricultural […]
Gaza fishermen are now able to sail further out to fish but commercial fish farming may be a better option Environmental and economic issues facing Palestinians living in Gaza have gone from bad to worse since the previous Cast Lead conflict between Gaza and Israel in 2008 – 2009. This is especially true following the […]
In the Middle East, recipes for stuffed vegetables and leaves evolved from a simple, thrifty way with meat to a culinary passion. Careful housewives have long known that a little ground meat goes a long way when artfully seasoned and combined with rice. But it took imagination and care to develop the recipes of stuffed […]
A SARS-like respiratory illness has claimed the life of a second person from Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced. The coronavirus sparked worldwide attention in September when an initial alert was sounded, but now a total of six cases have been reported, two of which have been fatal.
A better device for early breast cancer detection is expected to be available in 2013-2014. Any woman who’s endured the pain and embarrassment of a mammogram would welcome a painless alternative. Even better would be one that doesn’t subject her to radiation. Best would be a device that doesn’t crush her breasts, is radiation-free, and […]
You can see the color white; you can hear white noise. Now, Weizmann Institute researchers from Israel show that you can also smell a “white” odor. Their research findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The white we see is actually a mixture of light waves of different wavelengths. […]
I had the pleasure of meeting this enterprising Bedouin woman, Miriam Aborkeek while on a Bedouin home stay and personal tour with Yeela Raanan of Bedouin Experience in Israel. Here’s Aborkeek’s story about her natural cosmetics company Desert Daughter: Once, Bedouin women roamed with the seasons, foraging for plants and helping graze animals where the rains […]
The poorest country in the Arab world is addicted to chewing catha edulis or khat leaves, which gives men, women and children, an amphetamine-like high. Abdulmalik, a 13-year-old boy from Yemen’s capital city Sana’a, started chewing khat leaves at the age of seven. “My father would pass me small handfuls at weddings,” he told The […]
A plant-rich diet is best for your sexual and reproductive wellbeing. The Mediterranean Diet is often hailed as an excellent choice for those who want to ensure lifelong vitality, fertility and reproductive stamina. This diet is noteworthy for what’s it in – whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, fresh fruits and vegetables, fatty fish and […]
It’s real-life Hunger Games, and the Middle East is among the busiest land-grabbers. In the last decade, nearly half a billion acres of land – eight times the area of Great Britain – were sold or leased in transnational deals, according to a 2012 report published by the Land Matrix project, a coalition of research […]
Iraq meets Israel in Tel Aviv at this new sabich restaurant. Givatayim’s legendary eggplant-maker Oved Daniel, whom they call the “professor of sabich [Iraqi eggplant dish] science,” is opening up a new restaurant in Tel Aviv. Previously a gifted soccer player, today Daniel is a local food celebrity whose specialty sabich is one of Israel’s […]
If you’re interested in healing with herbs, this is the book to start from. Henriette Kress is a well-known Finnish herbalist who maintains Henriette’s Herbal Homepage, the Internet’s largest, and oldest, herbal website. She has published three books on herbology in Finnish; Practical Herbs is her first in English. It packs an impressive amount of […]
Pungent and bittersweet, garlic is no stranger to Muslim cuisine. Check out what makes it eco-holy and why a clove a day is a needed health top-up.
Seaweed is prolific in Israel’s Mediterranean Sea. It makes sense, then, that Middle Eastern ancients used it to help alleviate a host of ailments from peptic ulcers to fungal infections and wounds. Based on past and present literature, archeology, history, biology, linguistics and botany, the Natural Medicine Research Unit for the Study of Complementary, Alternative […]
Shuk Bites – for $26 you can eat your way through Jerusalem’s famous food market There are plenty of self-guided tours in Jerusalem, and even a few culinary tours. But combining the two approaches, “Shuk Bites” is the first self-guided culinary tour. [“Shuk” is the Middle Eastern word for market place, seen commonly throughout the […]
Amateur slaughterers are often injured on the job. Should slaughtering be left to the professionals? The annual Hajj pilgrimage, on which we wrote about efforts to make it more green, has also become an event in which animals are being slaughtered inhumanely for the accompanying Ein al-Adha or the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice holiday. […]
