Welcome to another round of “10 Words or Less.” Today’s contestant is the original thinker behind Rad Urban Farmers, about whom I wrote for The Boston Globe a couple of years ago. His gig is to farm on underutilized suburban yards and disperse the produce he grows to the landowners and to CSA and farmers’ market customers. His goal, after each garden is established, is to service them via only a bike and trailer. As you may recall, the idea here is to ask short questions, request short answers, and do a minimum of editing, but the “10WOL” thing is a goal, not a rule, so please, no counting.

Name Charlie Radoslovich (ra-DOS-lo-vich)
Age 40
Residence Arlington, Mass.
Passions “The environment and good food.”
A guilty pleasure “Eating vegetables before they’re fully mature.”
What did you want to be when you grew up? “A lawyer, believe it or not.”
What happened? “That was 3d grade.”

The "tobacco playbook" is legend among capitalists, especially those who want to keep selling a product that clearly has adverse health effects for those who buy it. And it should be, considering that for decades after it was clear that ingesting tobacco or its smoke was noxious, the playbook made it possible for companies to continuing with relatively few curbs, and tobacco continues to be sold even today.

Playbook practices include lying, delaying, misdirecting, and obstructing at every turn. Such tactics have nothing to do with claiming right or virtue, two concepts you want to have on your side but are all but meaningless when you're in the trenches. I've always thought this lesson has been much better taken in by conservatives vs. liberals, and capitalists vs. crusaders.

I've discussed the topic before, so why bring up this topic again? Because the forces of sugary soda are deploying them again, according to Reuters. Read on.

The JAMA op-ed by Drs. David Ludwig and Lindsey Murtagh in which they raised the issue of moving extremely obese children temporarily into foster care, as an alternative to bariatric surgery, has drawn comment far and wide, including by me.

I say in my book, ”Fat Boy Thin Man” that when the ideas that I hold about compulsive eating and food addiction become mainstream, scientific advances will have been far more influential than anything I said. I believe my story of losing 150 pounds-plus and keeping it off for two decades deserves to be in the conversation, but as a counterpoint to the science, not a replacement for it.

I was asked twice yesterday for my penny's worth of reaction to this story, about whether extremely obese children should be put in foster care:

It has happened a few times in the U.S., and the opinion piece in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association says putting children temporarily in foster care is in some cases more ethical than obesity surgery.

In a blog post about whether potatoes are really as bad as implicated in a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, food-policy doyenne Marion Nestle shares the six most common sources of calories in the American diet:

“Grain-based” desserts (translation: cakes, pies, cookies, cupcakes, etc)
Breads
Chicken and chicken mixed dishes (translation: fingers)
Sodas, energy, and sports drinks
Pizza
Alcoholic beverages

The city Monday officially asked for proposals from non- and for-profit entities that would farm three city-owned parcels in the Dorchester section to produce "fresh, healthy food for sale in the community."

The land will be leased at $500 an acre — roughly $125 to $200 per year for a term of five years," according to the press release.

Thanks to Andrea Atkinson for pointing it out to me.

Writing in yesterday's Times, Tara Parker-Pope reported on studies done in California and Italy about how rats reacted when given a high-fat drink:

"The body immediately began to release natural marijuanalike chemicals in the gut that kept them craving more. ... The compounds serve a variety of functions, including regulation of mood and stress response, appetite, and movement of food through the intestines. Notably, they were released only when the rats tasted fat, not the sugar or protein."

One key point is that when the body's chemistry is thus activated, we are driven to act in ways we wouldn't freely choose — in this case, to eat past when we've taken on sufficient fuel.

This truth is very important to recognize, for several reasons. For people who tut-tut toward fat people for being morally weak, it's important to know that for some people, there's more at work than just moral fiber.

This clever little comment ran in the Chicago Tribune; I saw it courtesy of Marion Nestle's blog...

I have not read it yet because it's just out, but I feel I can recommend Nancy Appleton's new book, "Killer Colas, The Hard Truth About Soft Drinks," on the strength of her earlier work, including her 1988 book, "Lick the Sugar Habit," and