Monkey Monday: I made this. 3 May 2010 11:43 pm
Posted by Tracy in : economics,environment,geekery,health,monkeys,pictures,politics,school,sustainability , 2 commentsI surprised myself today by producing not one but two diagrams for my final paper on food policy for urban and metropolitan regions. One of them even helped me organize a whole host of food policy issues according to a definition of sustainability based on health, the environment, and economics, like so:
Sustainable urban-metropolitan food policy, sort of.
The big breakthrough was the realization that sustainability and its environmental, economic, and health aspects are not food policy goals so much as they are common unifying themes shared across many food system goals and the policies and programs designed to pursue them, if that makes any sense. Anyway, that diagram helped me do a pretty decent presentation in class this afternoon, despite my weak chalkboard-fu and the fact that I hadn’t finished the paper yet. The first six pages are really solid, and I’m actually look forward to doing more on that project, even as I put it on hold to do the final for my food processing and industrialization class.
I’ll be fine if I just breathe.
Also, I had a fantastic sea scallop, fava bean, and rhubarb appetizer at Braeburn tonight. Nom.
Bed now! And way less coffee, iced or otherwise, for me tomorrow. G’night!
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…)
Ask TracyFood: should I freak out about genetically modified foods? 10 March 2010 11:05 pm
Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,books,economics,environment,food safety,food snobbery,friends,geekery,GMOs,health,history,Marion Nestle,politics,science,sustainability , 1 comment so farSo I got a message from the splendiferous Ms. Lara earlier today:
Hey, Tracy! Someone on FB is arguing that GM crops are categorically horrible and bad and whatnot. Can you send me some informative links to help educate her (and myself!)? (I seem to recall you linked to an article about the death of an agriculturalist who saved millions of lives with his crops, so of course I thought of you…)
Many thanks to my favorite foodie!!
-L
Well. How could I resist the chance to go all run-on sentence on that? (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…)
Quick Hit: Point of Order! 3 March 2010 2:44 pm
Posted by Tracy in : consumerism,convenience,eating,economics,food snobbery,geekery,health,news,nutrition,politics , add a commentToday, several news sources I follow are all about a new study comparing the effects of “junk” food taxes and subsidies on healthier food which concluded that the former is better at encouraging people to buy more “healthy” stuff. If this story goes away in less than a week, I will be very surprised, so I’m going to be watching it if only to see how long it persists, and hey, look at me responding to news in a timely manner for a change, woo!
That said, my one-word response to this study story is: AUGH. (more…)
