Food

Program connects kids and food

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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.


How can Big Food help the obesity crisis? Jeesh.

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“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?”


The problem we daren't mention

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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.


Please Mr. Big Food, add less "value"

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.


From my farm stand, a flood of refined 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.


Un-dieting advice, part 4 | Do the minimum

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Over the years, people have occasionally opined that the kit of actions that has allowed me to lose 155 pounds and keep it off 20 years is "a lot." 'Course, "a lot" is a relative term, but not a useful one necessarily. "A little" or "a lot" both miss the point of a desired outcome; "enough" is the only thing that matters:

If you want an outcome, are you doing enough to get it?

And how do you know if it's enough? Within a wholesome range, you can judge by results.

If you're getting the results you want, you're doing enough.


Again: Is there a problem or not?

As an editor of 30 years and a paid wordsmith for even longer, I am sensitized to the use of language, and I continue to be tickled by the way Big Food twists the words of others to make their arguments seem absurd.

A case in point is how the soda industry is reacting to New York City's ban on super-large sodas. They proclaim the unfairness of putting all of obesity's blame on soda alone, for example, when no is doing that.


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