S U S T A I N A B L Y

Getting greener by the day

Demons and food addction

Originally I wanted to make fun of this guy, Dattatreya Siva Baba, and he's still campy by Western standards, but his theory isn't too far from what I subscribe to, albeit with different frames of reference.

The description on the site where I "found" the clip said that "the main reason we are attracted to the wrong food is because negative forces or demons make us unconscious and we consume food that is bad for us."

Sweet defeat

Via Jamie Oliver, the heartening news that in the fall, DC schools will stop serving sugary cereals and flavored milk. 

Dispatch from the garden

Some plants are determinant. Some are indeterminant. One thing led to another, and I think I figured out the difference. Over at the Robbins Farm Garden blog.

Me and the Russian kale mob

A photo of me in harvesting mode, over at the Robbins Farm Park garden.

(Oh, and a couple of my gardening compadres, displaying other crops.)

Obesity by numbers

I've had cause to cite obesity stats from time to time, but chacha.com, a website I'd not heard of before today, brings them together in a nicely done infographic.

Among the datanuggets: 8 of 10 kids aged 10-15 who are overweight will be obese as adults. I fit into that cohort, even if I'm now escaping obesity with daily maintenance.

And: I knew the US was the heaviest nation on earth, by percentage of population, but I didn't know Mexico was second. Britain, Slovakia, and Greece complete the big five. C'mon, Canada, why so fit? 

Obesity by numbers

I've had cause to cite obesity stats from time to time, but chacha.com, a website I'd not heard of before today, brings them together in a nicely done infographic.

Among the datanuggets: 8 of 10 kids aged 10-15 who are overweight will be obese as adults. I fit into that cohort, even if I'm now escaping obesity with daily maintenance.

And: I knew the US was the heaviest nation on earth, by percentage of population, but I didn't know Mexico was second. Britain, Slovakia, and Greece complete the big five. C'mon, Canada, why so fit? 

"Men have been traditionally underrepresented..."

This is another in an occasional series on people who are working on behalf of problem eaters. If you've seen one of the others, you know the drill: I ask questions of 10 words of less, ask for answers of 10 words or less in return, and then edit a bit.

CHRISTOPHER CLARK, 49, Naples, Fla.
Founder, National Association for Males with Eating Disorders

Do you have an eating disorder?“I had an eating disorder, anorexia.”

When did you realize it? “In high school.”

We gave up our farm share

We had a summer and then a winter share from Enterprise Farms, located in western Mass. but with an Arlington drop-off point (someone's garage), but chose not to renew for a second summer.

Unlike with our first CSA, from the local Busa Farm, we didn't stop because we were unhappy, although the winter share was not satisfying — substantially more money for less variety: We had torrents of grapefruit and beets, which we didn't want and couldn't use, while even things we do like, such as potatoes, were so overwhelming that we came to miss any other starch. I would not recommend it.

Growing together

This is the post I promised earlier, at the bottom of this post about the veggie garden I greatly expanded at home this spring. This one is about a veggie garden, too, but I wanted the post to stand alone — to get a headline, as we used to say down at the newspaper factory.

Another of those dumb gardening posts

Swiss chard shootsI don't think I'll be one of those "here's what happened in my garden today" bloggers, but ... something happened in my garden today:

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Recently Published

  • For Paradigm Magazine, the journal of the Illinois Institute of Addiction Recovery, I wrote an essay on the realities of food addiction.

  • Growers moved by sustainability and community building are using other people's land to fuel the locavore movement around Greater Boston. [Boston Globe food section]

  • Across Major League Baseball, teams are getting greener, scoring both public relations points and on the bottom line. See how your team fares. E/The Environmental Magazine.

  • A trio of New England inns offer not ony respite from the road, but a chance to unhook from the grid. Boston Globe travel section.

  • I present the case for food addiction in an op-ed in the Portland Oregonian.

  • The top level of the Lenox is the first entire hotel floor in Boston to get a molecular-level cleanliness treatment slowly spreading throughout the industry.

  • For the op-ed page of the Boston Globe, I wrote an essay on the existence of food addiction. If you think it doesn't exist, you're wrong, but that's OK: You're also in the mainstream, at least for today. But that's changing.

  • The electrical grid has grown but otherwise hasn't changed much since it was put into use early in the 20th century. But that's about to change. (E/The Environmental Magazine)

  • Buying locally is one way to live sustainably. Buying reused and recycled goods is another way. Doing both is twice sustainable. (Boston Home)

  • For the Boston Globe Magazine, I went through at least 1,000 web pages in search of the most notable sites regarding Boston. Sixty-four made the cut.