A common polemical technique seeks to undercut someone's idea by describing what it's not. Here's an example:

By asking Americans to stop eating meat on Monday this insidious effort drives the extreme vegan agenda forward with a reasonable sounding request. “Just one day a week,” is their message, “and you are doing your part to save the planet and improve your own health.” No need to work up a sweat at the gym, go for a run or walk around the block. No need to conserve water usage in your own home (the average American household uses 400+ gallons of water per day) or reduce, reuse and recycle the 670,000 tons of trash we produce every day in the United States (84% of which could be recycled, including food scraps, paper, cardboard, cans, and bottles). All you have to do is give up your hamburger or steak one day a week.

No one argues that going meatless on Mondays is going to solve the problems of the world.

No. one.

The question is whether it moves us closer to health — personal, environmental, and otherwise — or further away from it. The writer, Daren Williams of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, does also address that question, which instantly qualifies him as a more credible source than many Big Food/Big Ag blowhards, but not before he deals this twaddle.

Sometimes people outside the news business think that people inside it — or more to the point, the institutions themselves — overreact when a journalist dies in the pursuit of her or his duties. "Big deal. A guy died where I work a couple months ago, and they didn't make such a big deal of that."

My experience is, the comment is not unfair, even if it's also fair to argue that journalists — especially those who work in war zones — are working for the broad general good, and are therefore representing all readers in ways that are different than, say, tradesmen or baristas.

I'll be appearing on the "Nia Imani Project" TV show tonight at 7 p.m. It's produced on the Boston Neighborhood Network, Channel 23 (Comcast) and Channel 83 (RCN) in Boston, and will be available for living streaming here.

Last week I embarked on a series of YouTube videos offering my tips for weight loss that don't dwell on food, secure in thinking that 5 minutes (OK, it grew to 7 in post-production) wasn't too long for the form. But I got different advice. So I've re-embarked, in the 2-minute range, which is to say, a little upwards of 3. Please take a look, comment, share, and repeat.

One of the features I like about Twitter is that it provides a middle ground, for items worth mentioning but not worth blogging.

(Actually, I should probably impose a Twitter-like character limit on my blogging and write far more posts, because that’s what readers want, but that offends my inclination. I’m working on that disconnection. OK, I acknowledge that disconnection.

(I’m fighting the same issue regarding my video posts. Later, I’m posting a revised first in a series, down to 2 minutes from the original 5.

Welcome to another round of 10 Words or Less, in which I ask brief questions and seek brief answers from interesting people. Today’s participant is a nationally recognized nutritionist who started her practice, Renaissance Nutrition Center Inc., near Philadelphia 23 years ago; I’ve been a client for more than a decade. Remember, no counting. The 10-words thing is a goal, not a rule, and besides, let’s see you do it.

Name H. Theresa Wright
Born when, where “Long ago in a little mining town in Northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Family situation “Married 44 years to the sweetest, kindest, most gentle man in the world.”
Formative event in your youth “They called my father to school and asked if I could go to college.”
Someone outside your family who has inspired you “You, Michael. Your courage, your persistence, your dedication to writing your book.”
First job “I was a quality control chemist in a licorice factory.”
How long have you been a nutritionist? “Thirty-two years.”
Why did you pick that? “I wanted to be an electrical engineer. Daddy said girls couldn’t be one. I picked the part of home economics that had the most science, and I fell in love.”

Jennifer LaRue Huget, whose words have appeared elsewhere on this page for more than a year, has no doubt attracted plenty of traffic to her "The Checkup" blog at the Washington Post with her reaction to the UCSF researchers' call last week for regulating refined sugar.

I've posted the first in a series of videos, all about 5 minutes, in which I talk about methods or practices or attitudes that have helped me lose 155 pounds and, more importantly, to keep my body at normal size for 20 years.

The series is meant to supplement how I'm able to spread the ideas in my book, "Fat Boy Thin Man."

I'm always looking for feedback and dialogue, so let me know what you think. And, if you like, please share.

If someone wanted to make a podcast just for me, the subject matter would adress the interplay of obesity and sustainability. Well, of course they didn't record it just for me, but here it is, from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale.

Actually, they did two; here's the other one. 

Some people I know — including myself, of course — self-identify as food addicts. Other people I know have many of the same symptoms and problems, but they self-identify as compulsive eaters. There are lots of other names, too: problem eater, emotional eater, night eater, binger, grazer, and so on.