I occasionally check in with writer/dancer/advocate Ragen Chastain, who blogs at danceswithfat.com, even though we have some basic differences. A recent post  headlined, "Why Weight Loss Is Not The Solution," followed up on another entry, "Obesity Is Not The Problem," and both notions fit right into a theme I've been wanting to develop for a while.

This post concludes a series of posts I’ve written to participate in the Blog-a-Thon To End Sugar Addiction, which started Tuesday and ends on Monday, Halloween Day, perhaps America foremost sugar-driven holiday.

I have another opinion in this topic area that I like to flaunt because I have absolutely no fear that I’ll ever be proven wrong, even though I haven’t any data to back it:

Mostly, I'm just moving this up in the queue of recent posts in hopes of getting a few more views. I heard this weekend that the effort to raise the $6,000 needed to complete production of this movie is more than two-thirds of the way there, with a deadline closing in. Please read further and see if you think it might be worth a small amount to you to see this message carried to a wide audience. — Michael

If you know anyone with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), you know they take over every facet of life, sapping one's energy at the very time that extra strength is required to overcome it.

My knowledge comes not from experience but from the experiences of my friend, Susan Abod, who's made a film to share her experiences, in much the same way I've written a book to share mine. Another commonality is that many people aren't convinced that neither her disease nor mine exists.

Susan is seeking to crowd-source the film's final financial hurdle, and my family will be contributing. If you think it worthy, too, you can go to her indiegogo page to help.

Another in a series of posts dedicated to Blog-a-Thon To End Sugar Addiction, which started Tuesday and ends on Monday, Halloween Day, perhaps America foremost sugar-driven holiday.

One reason I know that refined sugar is a problem for me, but not my foremost food problem, is that the very first step I took toward the defined food plan that I follow today was to give it up. That was almost 25 years ago, triggered by a suggestion from someone I knew briefly and whose name I long ago forgot.

And finally, friends, we come to the last excerpt I'm taking from Barbara Kingsolver's 2007 book, "Animal Vegetable Miracle," in which she places her family's efforts for the year within the context of global survival. Though her views grew from different roots than mine, I also came to my food advocacy from sustainability. I just didn't realize that my interest in sustainability and my interest in legitimizing food addiction came from spurs on the same line.

This is the second in a series of posts I’ve written to participate in the Blog-a-Thon To End Sugar Addiction, which started Tuesday and ends on Monday, Halloween Day, perhaps America foremost sugar-driven holiday.

This is the first of several posts I’m planning as part of the “Blog-a-Thon To End Sugar Addiction,” which started Tuesday and ends on Monday, Halloween Day, perhaps America foremost sugar-driven holiday. 

I’ve often remarked that “food addiction” is a misnomer that does not serve the very real condition it describes, and I’d say the same thing for “sugar addiction.”

In the former case, the problem is that no one argues that all food is, or can be, addictive. And so, I’ve said, a more descriptive (which not to say “better”) — would be “some-food” addiction. I don’t know any two addicts whose list of problem foods is exactly the same, though it’s fair to say that processed foods are more likely to appear on many such lists, and refined sugar and refined grain (aka flour) are particularly likely.

And that leads to the latter case: For very few people does the term apply to all sugars, which occurs naturally in a number of forms, most commonly lactose, fructose, and sucrose. What I react to in unhealthy ways is refined sugar, in which processing has removed the fiber and other parts of the plant, concentrating what’s left into a crystalline white powder. 

It should not escape your attention that that description — “processing has removed the fiber and other parts of the plant, concentrating what’s left into a crystalline white powder” — also describes cocaine. With only slight variation, it also would describe heroin and flour; the main difference is which plant the processor starts with.

Another concluding excerpt from my reading of "Animal Vegetable Miracle," Barbara Kingsolver's 2007 book in which she and her family became locavores for a year.

The biggest shock of our year came when we added up the tab. We'd fed ourselves, organically and pretty splendidly we thought, on about 50 cents per family member per meal — probably less that I spent in the years when I qualified for food stamps. ... Our main off-farm purchases for the year were organic grain for animal feed, and the 300 pounds of flour required for our daily bread. To put this in perspective, a good wheat field yields about 1,600 pounds of flour per acre. In total, for our grain and flour, pastured meats and goods from the farmer's market, and our own produce, our family's food footprint for the year was probably about one acre.<br/>By contrast, current nutritional consumption in the U.S. requires an average of 1.2 culitvated acres for every citizen — 4.8 acres for a family of four. (Among other things, it takes space to grow corn syrup for that hypothetiical family's 219 gallonghs of soda.) These estimates become more meaningful when placed next to another proediction: in 2050, the amount of U.S. farmland available per citizen will be on 0.6 acres. By the numbers, the hypothetical family has change in the cards. [Page 343]

The first comment I could add is that the value of her family's labor was left out of the calculation! But I can relate: I often rave about my cooperative community garden and one of the first measures I use is how much produce we get for the $75 entry fee. We surely get more than $75 worth, but then again, we are in the garden at least twice a week, and we have website and educational commitments as well.

Sure we pay only $75 out of pocket, but we pay in additional ways as well. For the record, the recompense I get from this involvement also goes way beyond the food: knowledge, shared by my fellow gardeners who know what they're doing; the community of those who come to garden; the community of the public park and of the town where the garden is located; the legacy for my son, now 2, to learn that food comes from the ground, not from cellophane wrap.

Another of the concluding excerpts from my readings, and commentings, on "Animal Vegetable Miracle," Barbara Kingsolver's 2007 book in which she and her family became mondo locovores for a year: