I just finished reading the Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, as part of my continuing education about the history of food and agriculture. I wasn’t at all prepared for the ending. I like resolution. Toward the last few chapters of the book I was holding the paperback in my hands, a very thick slice [...]
As you approach the supermarket’s automatic doors you walk onto a conveyer belt where your retina is scanned, your bone structure is measured, and your weight flashes on a flat screen in big red numbers before the glass doors open to let you inside to do your shopping. As you place your hands on the [...]
Some foodie friends came over for fried chicken and collards. They left behind a jar of dill pickles. I ate the last pickle yesterday and as I was rinsing out the jar, I noticed the list of ingredients included Polysorbate 80 and Yellow #5. Yikes! I can’t believe that made it through the front door [...]
I just listened to this podcast from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity about diet-related disease, the environmental cost of industrial food, and the lifestyle habits of Americans, who lead the Western world in watching TV and eating crap. It’s a brilliantly concise (14 minute) interview with New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, [...]