The linked post from Marian Nestle’s blog recounts the hasty retreat from a plan in Massachusetts to bar school bake sales, and it encapsulates so much of the nation’s nutrition problem.

In the uproar that resulted, opponents argued that it would make it harder to raise money for class trips, etc.; not resolve the obesity problem; and tread on local rights.

Friend and reader Casey Hinds pointed me towards Casey Seidenberg's post for the Washington Post lifestyles blog "On Parenting" and asked my take on its "all food should be enjoyed" message, vis a vis children and addiction potential.

I've withheld comment on pink slime until now for shifting reasons, and I probably ought to shut up still, but the topic continues to flit across my screens.

At first, I couldn't really get into it, and not only because I haven't eaten beef in longer than a decade: OK, ground beef has fillers in it. Not much news there. Yes, I had questions about treating non-nutritive meat trimmings with ammonia, but otherwise, I just couldn't get up for it.

The burgeoning fight around sugar toxicity has two sides: public-health advocates and the private industry.

For the former, the clients are you and me. Not only do individuals suffer from the flood of processed-sugar injected into every corner of the American diet, but there are significant and mounting collective costs as well: shared health costs, lost worker productivity, even national security. Every American, of every political and social persuasion, is affected by these things.

Olivier De Schutter is the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, and one of my new best friends, even if we've never interacted. Via the BC (British Columbia) Food Security Gateway and the COMFOOD e-mail loop, I've just read De Schutter's five ways to tackle disastrous diets, and it hits bullseye after bullseye.

Via my friend Jill Escher, I read this piece by David Bender on cravingsugar.net and wanted to pass it along. Though our backgrounds are fairly dissimilar, we’re brothers from his very first sentence, in which he says, “my goal is to raise awareness of food addiction.”

Part 1 Part 2 (this one) Part 3

I have a strong reaction when I hear nutritionists and/or registered dietitians say that wouldn't advise a client to give up any foods, because that would be deprivation and no one sticks with deprivation.

I apologize in advance, and again reiterate that I'm not a registered dietitian or any other kind of clinician, but those people, in my opinion, don't know what they're saying. (You can judge for yourself whether I do.)

I can't decide which part of this story of foodmanufacture.co.uk bothers me more, but I guess I'll opt for its complete lack of acknowledgment that diabetes is a serious health condition that degrades life on the way to early demise.

Welcome to another installment of “10 Words or Less,” in which I ask for short answers to short questions. Today’s participant just opened The Madrona Tree, a self-described "local eatery" in Arlington, Mass., that carries its commitment to local/whole even to its organic condiments. Please remember: No counting! 10 words is a goal, not a rule, and besides, let’s see you do it.

Name Tanya Abraham
Born when, where June 1, 1971, Weymouth, Mass.
Residence now North Reading, Mass.
Family situation Married, with a wife, Christie, and son, Frederick, 2
What did you want to be when you grew up "A coach and a restaurant owner."
A transformative event in your life "Working in hospice."
When did you do that? "For 10 years, until last year. I was director of business operations for Group Health Cooperative, Home Health & Hospice in Seattle."
Outside your family, someone whom you consider influential "Ruth Gregersen. She was a coworker of mine in hospice."

My predominant attitude toward paid corporate mouthpieces: Shut the hell up. Of course they have the right to speak, but if they're just spouting a line, I don't want to hear it. But sometimes, I do appreciate the chuckles I get when they do start talking.

Here's a bunch of crap from Elaine Kolish, vice president of the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, an industry-run front erected to forestall binding curbs on advertising of junk food to kids: