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...
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...
