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…)
Monkey Monday: new books and more 14 November 2011 4:53 pm
Posted by Tracy in : agriculture,books,consumerism,eating,geekery,news,science , add a commentAlmost halfway through NaBloPoMo, definitely feeling the crunch on my brain, even for short attention span theater like Monkey Mondays traditionally are. So today I’m keeping it short, with some excitement about new books, and a bit of snark-rant about a news item that made me go “durrrrrrrrr.” Here we go. I’ll start with the snark and end on the happy book geekery notes.
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Last Wednesday a New York Times “Well” blog post appeared in my Facebook feed: Tired of Feeling the Burn? Low-Acid Diet May Help and I reposted it (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…)
Random old news of awesomeness. 2 February 2010 5:50 pm
Posted by Tracy in : diet stress is a health hazard,eating,geekery,Harold McGee,health,health at every size,nutrition,pictures,random,reading,science,weird,whoops , add a commentSometimes it’s especially good to celebrate good things, and today’s post is dedicated to just that. I am supposed to be reading about the role of women in the invention of food science during MIT’s early years, which makes thinking good thoughts all the more important. Sample bit o’grumpy-making:
In his autobiography… Ellen [Henrietta Swallow Richards]‘s husband, Robert H. Richards, stated that “Ellen Swallow wanted a Doctor’s Degree, but although she worked hard for two years, she had to give up the idea. This was probably one of her greatest disappointments in life. It seems to me possible that some of the difficulties may have arisen from the fact that the heads of the department did not wish a woman to receive the first D.S. in chemistry.”
—Richards, R.S., His Mark, cited in Goldblith, S.A., Of Microbes and Molecules: Food Technology, Nutrition, and Applied Biology at M.I.T., 1873-1988, pp. 20-1
Graaaar! (Also, way to write about your partner like she’s a stranger, dude.) As far as I can tell, Ellen H. Swallow Richards was a stupendous badass and entirely too awesome for the jerks at MIT who wouldn’t admit her to the faculty (she was the Institute’s first female student—a Special Student category seems to have been made up entirely for her—and the first female member of its Instructing Staff), let alone let her complete a Ph.D. Also, if I read one more “Ms. X married Prof. Y, so he was probably her thesis advisor,” I may have to go into hysterics or something. Sigh. Hence my need to write about some good news!
Most of the stuff in this post isn’t particularly new, because I’ve been behind on all kinds of news for basically a year now, but if you’re like me, and have trouble keeping up with stuff, or just want to read about stuff that’s happy once in a while, then you’re in luck. Geekery ahoy! (more…)
