South Dakota legislative committee to revisit CBD oil legislation after public pushback

A bill submitted by South Dakota’s Department of Health aimed to put hemp-derived CBD products on the state’s controlled substance schedule—on par with drugs such as cocaine, heroin and marijuana. This past Monday the committee heard testimony from citizens who oppose the classification, arguing that CBD products “help them or someone they know manage pain and chronic illness, often without the help of addictive opiates.” This testimony has led the committee to revisit the language of the bill and alter it to specifically target cannabis-derived CBD, which is still federally classified as a Schedule I drug. Read more at Rapid City Journal …

Edible landscapes are un-lawning America

More and more Americans are planting their own food—one 2014 study found that a third of Americans grow at least some food at home, which is a significant increase (17 percent) from 2008. Edible landscaper Fred Meyer attributes this rise in “unlawning” to the still-reverberating chaos and insecurity stemming from the 2008 recession. In addition to ramping up the productivity of once-ornamental plots of land, edible landscapes also “increase the diversity of insect populations, create habitat for birds and other wildlife, and provide ideal conditions for the millions of microbes that make up healthy soil, which is critically important for their ability to store carbon and slow climate change. Read more at Civil Eats …

Whole Foods killed its ‘Meatless Mondays’ discount in several states—and some people are fuming

Whole Foods’ “Meatless Mondays” promotion offered shoppers a full plate of vegetarian prepared food for only $8, but now the company is ending the beloved promotion in several states and facing the wrath of many a longtime participant. One mother quoted in the article argues that although Meatless Mondays may have not always been profitable, “it said Whole foods stood for something—that it believed in a lifestyle—whether it was profitable or not.” Most of the disgruntled consumers blame parent company Amazon’s interference for the bad news. Read more at Business Insider …

Vegans storm an ‘ethical’ grocery store in protest and hurl abuse at customers and staff, despite the shop’s insistence that it only sells ‘happy’ meat, eggs and milk

UK-based vegan activist group Direct Action Everywhere recently targeted a sustainable grocery store for advertising “happy meat” to its customers. The store argues that it “works with [local] farms where animals are treated with care and respect” and opposes factory farming, which is how the “happy meat” label came about. The activists responded that “using animals in order to profit from their bodies is wrong—their lives are their own." Read more at The Daily Mail …

Big Dairy is about to flood America’s school lunches with milk

One-third of America’s children are already considered obese or overweight, and experts argue that the upcoming Trump-era reforms to school lunch menus nationwide may only worsen the child obesity crisis. This scaling back of healthy options is, however, a clear win for the dairy industry. Federally subsidized school meals account for 7.6 percent of total fluid milk sales, and kids are far more likely to consume milk products when the full-fat, flavored options are available—as opposed to the skim milk that dominated the Obama era school lunch reforms. Read more at Bloomberg  …