Eliza Barclay

It took a few hours for some Cubans to realize the magnitude of President Obama's announcement on Wednesday about changes in the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba, according to Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez.

Why? Because they were at the market, buying fish. "It is important to also say ...

On Sunday, my mother sent me an email: "OMG! Watch this unbelievable cooking show!"

It wasn't spam, and my mother, who's 65, does not use OMG lightly.

The fuss was over a 20-minute video about a 91-year-old grandmother who cooks Italian classics in marijuana-infused butter.

It's the first episode in ...

The man at the eye of the storm in Saudi Arabia is Ahmad Aziz Al Ghamdi. He's a religious scholar, the former head of the religious police in Mecca, a group officially known as the Committee for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

He has the pedigree of an ...

As we're sipping away on a glass of stout or Merlot, we probably take for granted our ability to digest the alcohol in the drink. Alcohol, or dietary ethanol (as scientists like to call it), is technically a toxin — imbibing too much can lead to a hangover and ...

Before this season of overindulgence freights us with unwanted pounds or a glutton's guilt complex, why not try the opposite of the holiday feast: the fast.

Fasting need not be a punishing, multiday ordeal of deprivation. Increasingly, scientists are warming to the intermittent fast, which can be as brief as ...

Many Americans will be sitting down Thursday to a wonderfully meaty, broad-breasted white turkey that grew to maturity in a remarkably short period: just 136 days, on average.

We have decades of intense selective breeding to thank for the dramatic evolution of the average American turkey — from a ...

While beverage companies have cut their marketing of unhealthy drinks to children on TV and websites overall, they have ramped up marketing to black and Latino kids and teens, who have higher rates of obesity than white youth, a study finds.

The report, released Wednesday by the Rudd Center ...

Urban agriculture is clearly taking off around the world — in backyards, on rooftops and on local farms.

But just how much of the world's cropland can we really call urban? That's been a big mystery.

Now, a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters has an answer: ...

Cities are increasingly getting tough on food distribution programs for the homeless. According to the Sun Sentinel, a 90-year-old activist and two pastors from two churches in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., were arrested at a park on Sunday and then again on Wednesday for doing what they've been doing there ...

Supermarkets are taking turkey orders; the tins of Christmas cookies beckon from display tables. These and other signs are unmistakable: The holiday feasting season is quickly approaching.

If you're like us, the prospect of cooking for a group — or contributing a dish to the holiday meal — this time ...

As I scrolled through tweets about a panel on agricultural entrepreneurs at the SXSW Eco conference earlier this month, one caught my eye. The sender was Vance Crowe, Monsanto's director of millennial engagement.

Corporate America is currently caught up in a torrid infatuation with millennials, who befuddle and torment the ...

Ebola has rightly gripped the world's attention, but its death toll pales in comparison to other infectious diseases like tuberculosis. TB is the world's second leading infectious killer, after HIV/AIDS, and it's claiming more victims than previously thought — 1.5 million last year alone — according to a report released ...

Now that we've entered the "craft cocktail" era, drinks with double-digit price tags are just par for the course. And in many cities, there's a decent chance that your fancy craft drink now comes with a large, crystal-clear cube or rectangle that melts unhurriedly in your glass. That's right: Artisanal ...

If you've got decisions to make at the meat counter (or at a burger joint) and want to do right by the environment, you have a couple of options.

You could skip the beef entirely, which is what some environmental groups say you should do. Or you could go ...

At the annual SXSW Eco, a conference in Austin, Texas, you'll find a lot of serious discussion of the rapid decline of the Earth's ecosystems.

But like the famed music, film and interactive parent festival, SXSW, this event is also about networking. That means parties. Lots of them. People ...

Genetically modified organisms are ancient, technologically speaking. Though some consumers may just be discovering that they're in the food system (and getting riled up about labeling them), farmers have had access to them since 1996.

But there's a new technology on the scene, adding a twist to the already ...

From IHOP to Olive Garden, most of the nation's biggest restaurant chains have come around to the fact that not every customer who walks through the door is craving country-fried steak with eggs and gravy or fried lasagna with alfredo sauce.

Bowing to changing tastes and calorie-count shaming ...

Mechanization has made the farming of many crops — lettuce and tomatoes, among them — a lot less labor intensive. But some crops are still tended and harvested by hand, and it can be painstaking work.

How do you measure the labor intensity of crops? We thought there would be ...

Last we heard, the once ubiquitous trans fats had mostly disappeared from packaged cookies, muffins and french fries.

That's what we reported back in November 2013, when the Food and Drug Administration announced it was intending to ban partially hydrogenated vegetable oils from all food products. The proposed ban ...

Chances are you haven't considered the tail of the cow that made the milk that goes into your Nestle Crunch bar or the cheese in your (Nestle-made) Lean Cuisine frozen dinner.

But as animal welfare groups report, many dairy cows have their tails partially amputated, or docked, to help ...