Eat This Newsletter 278: Eat well
Hello A little late this week so that I can bring you the latest results on ultra-processed foods without breaking an embargo. Ultra-processing does matter...
Eat This Newsletter 277: Empty calories
Hello What chance does an emaciated weakling regulatory agency have against the mighty, maggot-free muscle of Big Food? A Definitive Definition? Once upon a...
Eat This Newsletter 276: Diversities
Hello It is almost too hot to think, but not quite, so here are some thoughts triggered by last week’s expeditions into the interwebz. Desertification by...
Eat This Newsletter 275: Infrastructure
Hello Sound underpinnings are important, whether you are smashing bones with a rock or trying to keep the profits rolling in. Big Bone Grease Perhaps you’ve...
Eat This Newsletter 274: Pushmi-pullyu
Hello The administration giveth, and the administration taketh away. Of course consistency and logic is too much to ask for, although it is good to have a...
Eat This Newsletter 273: Buttery
Hello The heat is upon us, and yet the work must go on, scouring the internet for intriguing morsels, some more satisfying than others. Butter munchers Can...
Pellagra
Pellagra is a terrible disease characterised by the four Ds: dermatitis, diarrhoea, dementia and death. It was first noted in northern Spain in 1735 and in...
Eat This Newsletter 272: State-sponsored hunger
Hello If there’s a common theme to today’s stories, it is how forces way beyond a person’s control influence what and how they eat. Not Very Merry Widows A...
Quinoa in the Po Valley
Hello I booked a brief cycling holiday in the Po Valley with a friend. We stayed at an agriturismo based on a farm that -- entirely by chance -- happens to...
Eat This Newsletter 271: Pearls and Detritus
Hello How can it be June already? January was only yesterday. The circles keep turning. Oyster Cult Anthropocene Magazine does a good job of summarising a...
Eat This Gets Advice
Hello Many countries have strict rules about who is allowed to give advice on diet and nutrition, but that doesn't stop even qualified people from selling...
Eat This Newsletter 270: Concentrated profits
Hello Follow the money. Not always easy, always rewarding. Bird flu is just a convenient excuse Back at the beginning of March I pointed to a detailed...
Puglia: a land and its unique ingredients
Puglia, for most people, is only the actual high heel of Italy’s boot, but there’s far more to it than that. A new book, which explores the whole province,...
Eat This Newsletter 269: Salted butter
Hello From a world in which salt is scarce to one in which butter no longer involves cows, all presented for your delectation. “As Meat Loves Salt” These...
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...