Foto Friday: the last time I ate tuna. 30 October 2009 3:32 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,consumerism,eating,environment,fish,food safety,food snobbery,health,Holland,Marion Nestle,Netherlands,not even vegetarian,photos,pictures,restaurants,sustainability,tuna , 1 comment so farIt has been exactly four months since I last ate tuna. I believe this may be some kind of personal record; at the very least, it is the longest I can remember going without tuna since I cared to keep track of such things. Let me explain.
I love tuna; I think it’s incredibly delicious. Unfortunately, since because of that deliciousness it’s effectively an endangered fricken species, I try not to eat it too often, on account of how I’ll be a very cranky old lady indeed if large ocean fish are extinct in the next 40 to 50 years and I’m trying to do my part to reduce demand and all that. (Because I eat it so rarely, I’m not freaking out about the whole methylmercury problem, but it is horrific and I am eternally grateful to Marion Nestle’s What to Eat for the revelation that it’s not bioaccumulative.) Anyway.
I’ve been reading a bunch about tuna farming this week — real tuna farming, not “catch baby tuna in the wild and raise them in captivity” tuna ranching, but actual farming, baby fish hatched in captivity and everything, and my personal jury is still out, to put it mildly. I wanted to come to some kind of conclusion about this latest development in time to add it to this post, but it will have to wait for another time. In the meantime, I will continue my tuna-free streak. Luckily, the last time I ate tuna was so fantastic that it’s given me an even better motivation not to crack open the canned stuff — simply put, it’s going to be very hard to find another tuna meal this good. Behold:
I’m guessing that’s a good quarter kilo of fish, at least.
Monkey Monday: news and upcoming awesomeness 14 September 2009 3:46 pm
Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,events,fangirl,geekery,local food,Marion Nestle,news,nyc,politics,school , 2 commentsHoly cats, readers. I take a little break from class readings to check the news, and find out that Norman Borlaug is dead. Cue big hot flashbacks to my UO sustainable agriculture class, two and a half years ago. If you don’t know his name, maybe you’ve heard of a little agricultural transformation called the Green Revolution? The Nobel Peace Prize? You get the idea. End of an era and all that. I find myself wanting to reread Warren Belasco’s Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food
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Suddenly I’m not as interested in snarking about Michael Pollan’s “big food versus big health” fantasy New York Times op-ed. Suffice it to say I think the diet industry would be the real winner in that fight. And speaking of dieting, I have more than a few bones to pick with the cover of this week’s New York Times magazine. Stay classy, guys. Especially since freaking Newsweek is all over how B.S. like that is the real public health problem. Gah. And that’s without getting into the NYT Mag article that goes with that cover. Seriously what now? (more…)
Fall semester school stuff. 9 September 2009 2:04 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,hungry planet,Marion Nestle,politics,reading,school , 1 comment so farMy Food Policy class meets for the first time tonight, and I am super-excited about it. Any class that has Food Politics, Safe Food, and Hungry Planet as required readings just canNOT be all bad.
Already in my book collection.
Also on the class reading list: Sweet Charity and Closing the Food Gap with optional Appetite for Profit and Stuffed and Starved. (more…)
Monkey Monday: belated Thursday thanks. 18 May 2009 2:01 pm
Posted by Tracy in : cooking,good news,health,kitchen gear,Marion Nestle,monkeys,nutrition,school,sustainability,thank you Thursday , 1 comment so farSo first of all: thanks for being over, spring semester! I am getting way too old and cranky to stay up like I did last Wednesday night/Thursday morning to finish my vitamin C paper, but I did get it done, even if I forgot to cite any of Dr. Nestle‘s books in it (sigh). The fortification chapter of Food Politics would’ve been particularly appropriate for examples of how ascorbic acid is a great way to give junk food a health aura — and on top of that, it’s a preservative! Double whammy! On the other hand, I came in at exactly the 10-page limit (after severely truncating my Works Consulted section, which is where all of Dr. Nestle’s books should’ve gone if I’d had the pages), and I’d lost enough sleep without shoehorning in yet another chunk of information. So I’m going to hope everything’s all for the best.
Next, one more item related to the vitamin C paper: big thanks to Andrew for pointing me at a very recent study about vitamin supplements and exercise. So perfect for the “discuss a current paper about your nutrient” requirement!
Let’s see, what else? (more…)
Wednesday whining (and belated monkeys). 14 January 2009 3:20 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,fangirl,geekery,health,health at every size,Marion Nestle,meta,nutrition , 2 commentsWhine, whine, whine-itty whine, whine. I don’t wanna write! Wah, wah, wah. I’m editing pretty well, though, so the final installment of the guest post/interview series about food and chemotherapy is ready to go up (see here and here for the first two posts). So that’s a spot of good news.
Another bit of good-news-bad-news-good-news: I got the syllabus for the nutrition class I’m taking next term, and I’m all excited about it. Except for the part where I have to read Walter freaking Willett. As I whined on Facebook last week, I hope that man gets his face rubbed in some unhealthy skinny people right quick. Seriously, kids. How hard is it to acknowledge that healthy food and exercise are good for everyone of all shapes and sizes, irregardless of whether that precious, precious weight loss results? Apparently, “healthy stuff is healthy” is too hard to print without mentioning the hideous specter of fatness, not just for boring “diet stories sell” mainstream media but even for somebody as obviously not-completely-stupid as Willett. Sigh. Back to good news: (more…)
