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.

The NYT looks at vegetable-eating habits in America, and the trends are not good.

Quoting a study by market researchers the NPD Group, it said that "the number of dinners prepared at home that included a salad was 17 percent; in 1994, it was 22 percent. At restaurants, salads ordered as a main course at either lunch or dinner dropped by half since 1989, to a mere 5 percent."

In "The End of Overeating," Dr. David Kessler sketches this very useful, very accurate image: When customers step up to the McDonald's counter and pull out their $4.50 (or whatever), it's as though Uncle Sam is standing next to them, pulling out his wallet and paying another dollar (or whatever), because of the ways the federal government subsidizes corn.

I don't want to spend too much time on it, but I've also been working three raised beds, and now some pots as well, at home.