Wednesday weirdness: ginger condensation? 19 May 2010 1:44 pm
Posted by Tracy in : cooking,ingredients,photos,random,silly,weird , 1 comment so farSo yesterday, as planned in the end of my last post, I made a batch of Tracy granola, and noticed something weird when I measured out the ginger, from this jar here:
Just the standard Fairway-brand ground ginger, see?
But what’s that on the inside of the lid there? What is it? (more…)
Have you heard? 18 May 2010 3:52 pm
Posted by Tracy in : geekery,health at every size,hot mess,Marion Nestle,news,politics,random,weird , 2 commentsThe Partnership for a Healthier America (who should maybe think about trading that “healthier” out for “thinner,” seeing as how they talk about fat as if it’s synonymous with bad health, sigh) and Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (an industry group who at least have the honesty to put the weight obsession right in their name), in collaboration with Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move (about which I’ve already had a word or two on this blog), have brokered a deal wherein food companies promised to reduce the number of calories available per year in the U.S. food supply by 1.5 trillion calories by 2015, starting with a trillion fewer calories per year by 2012. Sounds pretty super-impressive, right? Those are big numbers! (more…)
Another belated Foto Friday: adventures in Upper Class dining 15 February 2010 1:53 pm
Posted by Tracy in : consumerism,eating,food as spectator sport,food snobbery,not even vegetarian,photos,pictures,salad,silly,travel,vegetarian,weird , 3 commentsAll right, party people, I’m pretty sure this is the last post in my series on traveling super-fancy Virgin Atlantic Upper Class style. The first was during the trip out to my Opa’s funeral early last month, then a few weeks later I showed off my flying fancy schwag (and the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow, OMG, and yesterday Friday I posted a bit about the actual in-flight experience. But I have, in a sense, saved the best for last, which is to say today I’ll be writing about what I ate on said ridiculously luxurious flight.
Perusng the menu.
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…)
The weird, wild world of childhood obesity statistics. 18 November 2009 5:48 pm
Posted by Tracy in : geekery,health,health at every size,news,politics,school,society,weird,whoops , 1 comment so farSo I knew I was going to have trouble with the reading for next week’s Food Sociology class when on the very first page I read the statement:
“We suffer from widespread obesity, particularly among children…”
Karl Weber, preface to Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food Is Making us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer — And What You Can Do About It (New York: Public Affairs, 2009).
Oh, really? Last time I checked, I thought rates were way higher in adults than in kids…. oh, sure enough. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, “Results from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and weights, indicate that an estimated 32.7 percent of U.S. adults 20 years and older are overweight, 34.3 percent are obese and 5.9 percent are extremely obese….” That’s with your standard BMI >24.9 kg/m2 for overweight, BMI > 30 kg/m2 for obese, and BMI > 40 kg/m2 for extremely obese, and it’s a grand total of 72.9 percent of the adult population weighing in (har, har) as overweight or obese. Compare that to the CDC on childhood overweight and obesity, which says, “The most recent NHANES data (2003–2006) showed that for children aged 6 –11 years and 12–19 years, the prevalence of overweight (BMI ≥85th percentile) was 33.3% and 34.1% respectively.”
Holy cats! Adulthood makes you fat!
Ok, but seriously. First of all, at first glance those kid numbers don’t look nearly as bad as the numbers for adults. But wait — how the hell can 33.3% or 34.1% of a population be at or above the 85th BMI percentile? What in the name of monkeys does that even mean? (more…)
