The Paradox of Plenty
More abundant and cheaper food is not better for us or the planet. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the cost of diet-related ill health...
Eat This Newsletter 268: Will the Circle …
Hello I shouldn’t be surprised, though I often am, at how the things I find intertwine with one another. This week, for example, the customary opposition of...
Farming’s Overlords
The top four companies globally control more than 60% of the inputs modern farmers need: machinery, fertilisers, seeds, and pesticides. That kind of...
Eat This Newsletter 267: More Diversity
Hello Today’s grab bag is offered without much comment because I am preoccupied with an imminent road trip that will, I hope, result in some future episodes...
The Rise and Fall of Quinoa
Farmers on the altiplano of Peru saw their income from quinoa increase by almost 900% between 2007 and 2014. The boom was followed even more quickly by a...
Eat This Newsletter 266: A dream scenario
Hello I cannot remember where or when (long ago!) I first learned that pigs and ducks in close proximity made an ideal melting pot for more virulent...
More pork
Dear Supporter Last week’s podcast on Jews and the pig with Jordan Rosenblum raised lots of questions. Aside from a brief mention of Marvin Harris’ debunking...
Forbidden: Jews and the Pig
Perhaps the only thing most people know about Jewish dietary laws is that pork is forbidden. A new book asks why the pig — rather than any of the other...
Eat This Newsletter 265: Past and Future
Hello Some items look back, some look forward, but isn’t that always the way? Food and Energy Gunnar Rundgren’s essay Eating Oil will probably not be to...
Food facts are not the answer to fear of foods
Hello “What kind of food system do we want for the future? What kind of questions should we be asking? Whose questions matter? What kind of questions matter...
Eat This Newsletter 264: Curated
Hello Three long reads for you today, on which I will mostly refrain from comment. And one that I did read, in order to comment, although there is also a...
Food, folklore and St Brigid
St Brigid of Kildare is one of the three patron saints of Ireland and has a strong connection with food and farming. St Brigid’s day falls on 1 February and...
Eat This Newsletter 263: Connectivity
Hello I’m struck, once again, by the connections it is possible to make with very little effort. Sugar craving, cheap ultraprocessed calories, cheap food for...
Eat This Newsletter 262: Forage
Hello Not much news this week. People seem to be preoccupied with other things, among them the price of eggs. Here’s a chart that touches on the matter, from...
Eat This Newsletter 261: Consistently flawless
Hello Dietary guidelines face “an unfair fight from the start”. No such thing as officially organic cannabis. Family-owned fast food is sketchier. And, what...
Eat This Newsletter 260: Consolidated
Hello, and Happy New Year Two pieces about food and place, two pieces about the perils of industrial food, and one blast about why the food system is as...
Eat This Newsletter: Call a Sprat a Sprat
You could call it doggedly pursuing the truth wherever it may lead. You could also call it borderline obsessive. Whatever you call it, here is a piece only...
Eat This Newsletter 259: Ring out the old
Hello Just a few things from the between times. Gildas From a far-flung correspondent comes news of a “a bar here in Sydney called Gilda’s in Surry Hills,...
Sensual, Salty, and a Little Bit Spicy
Hello No apologies for once again casting my net in the fruitful waters of Basque cuisine and history. There is a pintxo — those tasty bites of stuff on a...
Eat This Newsletter 258: Gifted
Hello Gearing up to wind down. I’ve one more podcast episode in store before I take a short break, during which I will try to keep the newsletter coming each...