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Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed ourselves, and our children. Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father's pub-restaurant. He showed not only a precocious culinary talent but also a passion for creating (and talking about) fresh, honest, delicious food. In the past decade, the shaggy-haired "Naked Chef" of late-'90s BBC2 has built a worldwide media conglomerate of TV shows, books, cookware and magazines, all based on a formula of simple, unpretentious food that invites everyone to get busy in the kitchen. And as much as his cooking is generous, so is his business model -- his Fifteen Foundation, for instance, trains young chefs from challenged backgrounds to run four of his restaurants. Now, Oliver is using his fame and charm to bring attention to the changes that Brits and Americans need to make in their lifestyles and diet. Campaigns such as Jamie's School Dinner, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA combine Olivers culinary tools, cookbooks and television, with serious activism and community organizing -- to create change on both the individual and governmental level.

"On Nutrition Data, you'll find detailed nutrition information, plus unique analysis tools that tell you more about how foods affect your health and make it easier to choose healthy foods."

"Researchers are finding that food miles are far from the whole story when assessing the environmental impact of what we eat. At a conference last month on the economics of food, Chris Foster of Manchester Business School presented some startling conclusions from a review of the evidence. "

"Adults who ate canned soup daily showed a jump in levels of the plasticizer BPA in their urine, according to a small study. The study of 75 people in Tuesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after eating canned foods compared with eating freshly prepared ingredients. Bisphenol A is an industrial chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic for water bottles and food containers as well as the protective lining in metal cans."

But in recent years, environmentalists have branded corn as an icon of unsustainable agriculture. It requires large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which require large amounts of fossil fuel to manufacture. Most of the resulting corn is fed to livestock who didn't evolve to subsist entirely on corn. In cattle, eating corn increases flatulence emissions of methane - a potent greenhouse gas - and creates an intestinal environment rich in e. coli, a common cause of food poisoning.

"Normally a small pleasant town with a population in the low thousands, Hokitika is being transformed every March by it's annual Wilde Food Festival. This year festival was celebrating its 21st anniversary."

A UK survey has revealed that myths about contraception may be widespread. One in five women said they had heard of kitchen items, including bread, cling film and even chicken skin, being used as alternative barrier methods. Others had heard food items such as kebabs, Coca-cola or crisps could be used as oral contraceptives.

According to a paper in PLoS Computational Biology, "PageRank" can be applied to the study of food webs.

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in fast food: Signatures of corn and confinement

15 Best Foods to Boost Your Metabolism

William Li presents a new way to think about cancer treatment: angiogenesis, targeting the blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that beat cancer at its own game.

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Earthship Biotecture creates buildings that... * Heat and cool themselves naturally via solar/thermal dynamics * Collect their own power from the sun and wind * Harvest their own water from rain and snow melt * Contain and treat their own sewage on site * Produce food in significant quantities * Utilize materials that are byproducts of modern society like cans, bottles and tires

"The two developed a technique that uses bacteria to break down the foam plastic used in many disposable cups, fast-food containers and packing materials."

Want to see a real sugar high? Launch a model rocket with Oreo cookies

"The BBC's Jeremy Cooke has been to an eco-friendly GM pig farm in Canada to find out more. "

"The researchers found a link between IQ and diet, even after taking into account other factors such as the mother's level of education, social class and duration of breast feeding. A diet high in processed food at the age of three was linked to a slightly lower IQ at the age of eight and a half, suggesting early eating habits have a long term impact."

"In particular, rapid swings in the density of plants and fleas indicated the food web was unstable and about to change. The idea that such early warning signals ought to exist is not new - but the researchers say this is the first time it has been demonstrated experimentally. "For a long time, ecologists thought these changes couldn't be predicted," said research leader Stephen Carpenter from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US. "But we've now shown that they can be foreseen. The early warning is clear; it is a strong signal.""