Food Jargon of the Day: Urban Gleaning

Urban Gleaning
Gleaning is the practice of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested, or from fields that are not economically profitable to harvest. Urban gleaning is the practice of salvaging fruit from trees located in cities to provide low income residents with access to fresh fruit. For more information, checkout the Portland Fruit Tree Project, a gleaning initiative that organizes people in the Portland, Oregon to gather fruit before it falls, and make it available to those who need it most.

Food Jargon Watch: Imitation Edibles and In Vitro Meat

Imitation Edibles
All manner of fake food - from faux meats to near beer and liquid smoke. Mock foods seem to be the gastric meme of the moment with the current edition of VegNews focusing on faux meats, Emily Nunn's recent article in the Chicago Tribune on fake foods (from which the term "imitation edibles" is culled), and PETA's challenge to scientists to step up research into in vitro meats (see below).

In Vitro Meat
Laboratory produced meat "grown" from animal stem cells. In vitro meat is not yet a reality, but PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and make in vitro meat available to consumers. According to the PETA website, in vitro meat would enable the production of meat without killing any animals.