This story from FoodNavigator-USA is an interesting study in selective perception, if also being a crock.

The question of its headline is, “Is the food industry under attack from an NGO/media complex?” To which I will quickly answer, “yes, but no.”

My summer of not blogging/not tweeting/barely FB-ing continues, as I tend to other portions of my outreach to the world.

One part of that is the stories I've been writing in the Boston Globe food section, which almost always spring from the sustainable-food world. The latest entry, on the locavores' increasing interest in natural fermentation as the way to preserve summer's bounty, is published today.

For some reason, I keep going back to France, even though I haven't had the best of results. I gave this speech to my Toastmasters Club.

My first point today is that obesity is not a disease.

Disease can cause obesity, but to me, obesity is not a disease but a condition —  a result of heredity, behaviors, and often of choices (though not always).

The disease I’m thinking of in that last sentence is, of course, food addiction, which also goes to “... choices (but not always).” Food addicts do engage in behaviors that often result in obesity, but untreated, they (we) don’t have the same power of choice that you have — and that you probably think we should have.

Scant blogging lately as I give attention to other things. It's just temporary.

But in the meantime, here's my latest Globe story on food from a sustainability perspective, or is it sustainability from a food perspective?

Yes, the Globe story is one of the "other things" I've been giving my attention to.

“Tackling childhood obesity: What role should industry take?”

That’s the headline atop foodnavigator-usa.com’s story from a panel at the Institute for Food Technologists’ annual meeting last week in Las Vegas, and I had to think, “are you kidding me?”

I’ve written about the word “obesity” before, as some sort of bogey-word best not spake, in case someone might take offense. I concluded in that post that, OK, if using a different word would allow someone to get help they’d otherwise shun, fine. But you can see from my phrasing in the first sentence, I’m still working on meaning it.

Here's my latest story for the Boston Globe food section exploring corners of the sustainable food movement. Today's installment is about the farmers and fishers who sell protein via the community-supported model, as well as the customers who support them.

In my previous post, I described how my farm stand thanked its first 200 patrons, three days in a row, with a goody bag in celebration of a pavilion it opened. Because a large curly head of lettuce filled the open end of the bag, I assumed (incorrectly) that it all was produce and was disappointed to learn when I got home that it was the only produce: The other five things were all dependent on processed sugar.

I’m a supporter of my local farm stand, a retail outlet of the farmer with the most acreage under till in New England. I go there for the fresh, locally grown produce at decent prices, and enjoy knowing that I’m supporting not only a local business but an improbably strong agricultural survivor in the sea of suburbia.

They sell a lot more than local produce, and I’ve recently been taken greater heed of where stuff comes from, declining to buy the Argentinian and Chilean apples, pears, etc., because of the food miles.