Monkey Monday: Thanksgiving week continues. 21 November 2011 11:42 pm
Posted by Tracy in : comics,cooking,diet stress is a health hazard,eating,geekery,health,monkeys,news,nutrition,random,science , add a commentSo I got into the Thanksgiving spirit early with my epistolography yesterday, and I’ve got a few extra gratitude-themed posts planned for later this week (one of which is foreshadowed by a high-larious comic hidden in a link in this very entry!)
I feel like I’m turning into the NaBloPoMo homestretch, and that means I have to be extra-bonus careful not to fall into complacency, especially at the end of this week when I’ll be all distracted by holiday family action. Today I have been all distracted in general but a highlight of that distraction was that I now know I can make pierogies! This changes everything! Ok, not really, but (more…)
Foto Friday: recipe revisionism EXPOSED! 11 November 2011 2:52 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen,baking,consumerism,cookies,diet stress is a health hazard,food snobbery,geekery,photos,pictures,random,recipes,seasonality , add a commentJust one picture today, readers, but it is a doozy! Check this out:
Oatmeal cookie recipe revisionism — EXPOSED!
Do you know what this means, readers? DO YOU? (more…)
Another Twitter Tuesday! 8 November 2011 11:24 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen,diet stress is a health hazard,events,fangirl,fast food,food safety,food snobbery,health at every size,media,meta,news,Twitter Tuesday , add a commentHey, so like I confessed yesterday, I really didn’t know what to blog about today, only then suddenly, to my surprise and delight, the Twitters, which I kinda sorta really hadn’t been watching since last Tuesday, came through for me in a big way. Check these out! First and foremost, my former classmate Shanti with news that makes me want to make horrible puns about sticky messes:
Shanti Elise Prasad (@shantielise)
If you eat honey, this may blow your mind. Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey… foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-…
I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around this story, personally, because as far as I can tell from the article, the definition of “honey” being argued about here is whether or not (for example) the sweet golden goo in the plastic bear has pollen in it. But the article’s scandal-monger-y lede:
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
really rubs me the wrong way. Because with the possible exception of some wild-caught fish, pretty much no animal product sold in U.S. grocery stores is exactly what the animals in question produce. It’s all processed one way or another. (more…)
The U.S. Childhood Obesity Task Force: a comment 26 March 2010 2:28 pm
Posted by Tracy in : diet stress is a health hazard,geekery,health,health at every size,nutrition,politics,writing , add a commentSo on February 9 of this year, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memo establishing a joint task force between the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Education, directing those agencies to come up with a plan to address the “problem” of childhood obesity. The task force is part of a larger effort, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, with the uncontroversial but catchy name Let’s Move! and I have extremely mixed feelings about this project because I support almost everything about it except the fact that good things like improved school lunches and increased access to healthier food in underserved neighborhoods are being pursued in the name of ending obesity. Those mixed feelings are part of why I haven’t posted about Let’s Move until now—but also, I ran into a deadline. The Joint Task Force’s official Request for Information is accepting public responses until 11:59 tonight (and yes, that link will take you to much more information about the Task Force and a way to submit comments of your own). Here is what I wrote: (more…)
Thank You Thursday: Tara Parker-Pope 4 March 2010 8:15 am
Posted by Tracy in : diet stress is a health hazard,eating,good news,health,health at every size,media,news,nutrition,thank you Thursday , 2 commentsSeriously, youse guys, I haven’t been following Tara Parker-Pope’s Well blog for the New York Times super-closely or anything, but on several occasions now it’s been hard for me to ignore the fact that her reporting keeps taking a remarkably reasonable view of health and weight, most recently in a post that’s, well, downright critical of the all-too-popular misconception that weight changes are a simple function of calories consumed and burned—especially for a mainstream publication like the Times (albeit only on one of the paper’s blogs, not in its printed pages, but still). Here’s my favorite part, with boldface emphasis from me on the ideas that were SO EXCITING to see:
“I’m not saying throw up your hands and forget about it,” Dr. Friedman [Jeffrey Friedman, head of Rockefeller University’s molecular genetics lab] said. “Instead of focusing on weight or appearance, focus on people’s health. There are things people can do to improve their health significantly that don’t require normalizing your weight.”
What, you mean there might be more to health than body weight? (more…)
