Diet

Because I became allergic to chocolate when I was seventeen

Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400

because a rash spread on my chest when I ate mole sauce at Sanborns; because acne populated my face every time I drank hot cocoa; because I believed it to be easy to give up something I loved

Milk

Sun, 31 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

The Body Eats

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500

I want to keep eating. I want life. More life. I want to turn from the simple facts of my existence to consider bigger mysteries, to fret about what might be, to remember what is no more. I want to imagine something other than this food in front of me, already a commodity on some assembly line, moving away from me.

Bad Lunch

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500

I’d come to think of being a chef on a yacht as a kind of psycho-spiritual quest, like Homer’s Odyssey, only instead of tumultuous seas and six-headed monsters, our challenges were wealthy clients who arrived by private jet with Louis Vuitton purses on their arms.

Butter

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400

I went on absorbing Beth’s hostile digs until a new patient stole her attention from me. Louise had a round face, dark curly hair, and a generous, pear-shaped body. Her weight seemed concentrated in her thighs. When she arrived at lunch for the first time, her figure filling the doorframe, Beth’s eyes brightened as if she were an African lion coming upon a gazelle. I could practically feel my tormentor’s focus lift off me.

A Seat at the Table

wyattww@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0400

The terrible emotions I was filled with are the truth of what it means to be alive. When you live, something else dies. Even if you only eat plants, animals die for you to be able to eat. We do not talk about that often enough.

The Salmonella Special

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 04:10:00 -0400

In twelve months I hadn’t set foot in a supermarket, hadn’t compared the prices of two brands of bread, hadn’t stood in a checkout line to buy anything, not even a pack of Tic Tacs. Everything I ate had been thrown away. Everything I ate, I’d found first.

The Strong, Silent Type

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Risak: How is the “masculine body” defined?

Siegel: In the U.S. we typically see a mesomorphic ideal: lean, muscular, and with a low body-fat percentage. This is persistent across the U.S. and common in LGBTQ+ communities in particular. Sexual-minority men are at elevated risk for eating disorders due in part to the lean ideal being perpetuated in their communities.

Weight

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0500

An orphan’s hunger, a teacher’s praise, a mother’s farewell

People Are Starving

Tue, 01 May 2018 00:00:00 -0400

We didn’t know what it was to be desired. We didn’t know what girls’ bodies were supposed to look like. We just knew it was better for us if nothing stuck out too far.

Ode To Fat

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0500

Tonight, as you undress, I watch your wondrous / flesh that’s swelled again, the way a river swells / when the ice relents. Sweet relief / just to regard the sheaves of your hips, / your boundless breasts and marshy belly.

Sunbeams

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 16:48:34 -0500

The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it.

Andy Rooney

Appetites

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:45:00 -0400

A forbidden treat, a secret stash, a sexual obsession

Too Much Of A Good Thing

Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:00:00 -0500

There’s growing attention to the importance of nutrition and physical activity, which is a cause for hope, but my concern is that these trends are very much class driven. Wealthy people tend to be able to afford to be physically active and to eat healthy foods and to reduce stress and to get enough sleep and to stop smoking. There have always been disparities in health between classes, but I worry they are going to widen. Just as we have income inequality, we’re heading toward a world in which we see an increased burden of noninfectious chronic diseases in the lower classes.

Prayer For Gluten

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Heavenly Father, in your infinite goodness you created the earth and blessed us with its clear, abundant waters and fertile lands yielding plenteous harvests of fruits and vegetables and grains, some of which happen to contain gluten. We praise you, Lord, for creating gluten, an important yet humble source of protein enjoyed for centuries by the peoples of many nations, the great majority of whom didn’t even know it existed until recently.

November 2013

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:00:00 -0400

I dreamt that I was eating sunshine — as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. No worry about calories.

My Life In Vegetables

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0400

I became a vegetarian in September 1971 after meeting a man wearing a white robe during orientation week at Cornell University. I saw this saintlike figure reposing on a hill, staring at a tree. Curious, I approached; he told me his name was Peter and begged me to sit. Soon he was explaining the Essene Gospel of Peace.

Sunbeams

Sat, 01 May 2010 16:48:00 -0400

I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.

Johnny Carson

Sugar

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Orange slices from Whole Foods, the twisted algebra of anorexia, Big Sugar

Eat Your Dreams

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The next day, while recounting the dream to my wife, I realized I had discovered the perfect diet, one that allows the dieter to feast on any food and never gain weight. The secret is to eat in your dreams.

Countertop Culture

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The revolution I would like to see is a devolution of agriculture. We have to let go of the notion of mass-producing food. It just doesn’t work. Cars and computers may lend themselves to mass production, but with food it has been a disaster. We have to revive small-scale food production and relearn the art of food processing, including fermentation, so we can stop relying on these huge and vulnerable food infrastructures.

The Good Earth?

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Cancer is definitely not a random tragedy. If you look at a map of the U.S. and plot out the incidence of different sorts of cancers, you see patterns. Some cancers are more common in the Midwest and the Great Plains. Other cancers tend to cluster around certain industries. Those cancer maps are not proof, but they present a compelling hypothesis. If we see, over and over again, that bladder-cancer rates are higher in counties with leaking toxic-waste dumps — which is indeed the case — then that’s a clue. If we see leukemias and lymphomas are highest in areas of the Great Plains and the Midwest where herbicide use is highest, that’s a clue. It means “Dig here. Further inquiry required.”

May 2007

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:11:00 -0400

I inadvertently stepped on my cat Nimbus in the dark this morning. I’ve already apologized, and she doesn’t appear hurt, but I feel as if I’ve started the day by invading another country. Would a jury of my peers convict me for such a careless act?

May 2006

Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 -0400

What a big appetite fear has. What a succulent morsel I was last night.

Lost In The Supermarket

Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Families used to control what their members ate and pass along learned wisdom in the form of a food culture. Now that’s gone. Most people don’t eat as families. We eat individually, going one-on-one with the food supply, which is how the food industry likes it.

The Anxiety Of Eating

Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Historically, national cuisines have been remarkably stable and resistant to change, which is why the immigrant’s refrigerator is the very last place to look for signs of assimilation.

April 2005

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:09:00 -0500

I told a friend I was still feeling aggrieved about last November’s election. He suggested I take a more philosophical view. The ancient Chinese, he said, used to consider themselves fortunate if a great emperor came along once every five hundred years.

April 2004

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 00:00:00 -0500

How odd that I still distance myself from my feelings, as if sadness itself were my enemy, a smooth-talking terrorist with one foot in the door.

January 2004

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Time throws his arm around my shoulder, congratulates me for thirty years of hard work, and hands me a cigar: the exploding kind, I see. I thank him and slip it into my pocket. For later, I say. When my work is done.

Hunger

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Boarding school is like purgatory, or prison — being sent away to wait. That’s mainly what I do: wait for time to pass. There are five more hours to supper, and I’m hungry already. I’m up here in an empty classroom, writing in my diary when I’m supposed to be studying, ’cause it’s one week till finals. Three more long weeks, then home, home at last.