Browse Topics
Diet
Sunbeams
May 2010I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.
Countertop Culture
Something Is Fermenting In Sandor Katz’s Kitchen
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.
May 2010
Eat Your Dreams
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.
May 2010Sugar
Orange slices from Whole Foods, the twisted algebra of anorexia, Big Sugar
May 2010
The Good Earth?
Sandra Steingraber On How We’ve Made The Environment Dangerous To Our Health
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.”
January 2010
May 2007
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 2007The Anxiety Of Eating
An Excerpt From The Omnivore’s Dilemma
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.
May 2006
Lost In The Supermarket
Michael Pollan On How The Food Industry Has Changed The Way We Eat
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.
May 2006
May 2006
What a big appetite fear has. What a succulent morsel I was last night.
May 2006April 2005
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 2005
