My response to a popular social media post is below. I don’t pretend it’s the final word, but it expresses something missing. The post I responded to Guys ask why women are so pissed off. Even guys with wives and daughters. Jackson Katz, a prominent social researcher, illustrates why. He’s done it with hundreds of audiences: “I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol[…] Keep reading →

American cuisine has two simple rules governing it, I found. You often have to step outside a system to see it with fresh eyes. First, I’ll describe that process. Stepping outside the system We’ve seen pictures of plastic choking once-pristine beaches and wilderness. One day three years ago I looked down at my kitchen’s garbage and saw that most of my garbage came from food packaging. I decided to try[…] Keep reading →

We look at technology, culture, cities, and so on and consider ourselves advanced relative to past people and cultures. They thought the Earth was flat. The couldn’t draw with perspective. They didn’t know that germs caused many diseases. If we’re so smart, imagine this: if you could magically go back in time knowing everything about today’s world, could you make the world a better place? If so, how? Sure, if[…] Keep reading →

Here’s what I mean by yummy: Here’s what I mean by delicious (a delivery from my CSA): What’s the difference? “Yummy” food tends to have qualities such as: Little fiber Fried Sugar, fat, and salt provide the dominant flavors and textures Little raw ingredients Mostly yellow, orange, or brown Other colors often come from food coloring and don’t represent the raw foods Sauces Packaged Corporate processing Many ingredients “Delicious” food[…] Keep reading →

Do American Restaurants Only Serve Comfort Food? Can you eat delicious and healthy away from home? You probably want to eat healthy. It’s hard in American restaurants and markets, which may devote over 90% of their space to packaged and fiberless industrial food products. Maybe you put the effort in to avoid industrial food products in favor of fresh, whole vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds. If you’re like me, you learned to love the subtle, complex, nuanced flavors[…] Keep reading →

The Green Revolution saved over a billion people from starvation, according to many. I don’t think that’s the only way to see it. Before describing other ways, first, what is the Green Revolution? According to Wikipedia, The Green Revolution, or Third Agricultural Revolution, refers to a set of research and the development of technology transfer initiatives occurring between the 1930s and the late 1960s (with prequels in the work of[…] Keep reading →

The past few days have seen many articles on the Philadelphia police arresting two black men in Starbucks. Let’s look at the New York Times article, Starbucks Arrests, Outrageous to Some, Are Everyday Life for Others, for example. It begins PHILADELPHIA — The video of the police arresting two black men in a Starbucks, viewed more than 10 million times online, quickly prompted a full-blown crisis: accusations of racism, protests both in[…] Keep reading →

When I was a kid, my mom and stepfather switched from salted butter to unsalted. I remember the unsalted tasted bland, like nothing. I couldn’t stand it. Some time later—maybe weeks or months, I don’t remember—I tasted salted butter again for the first time. It tasted terrible! It was way too salty. Of course, the amount of salt in the butter didn’t change. I did. My taste buds had adjusted[…] Keep reading →

“It was inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded Dr. Juvenal Urbino of the fate of unrequited love.” Have you paid attention to the opening lines of Love in the Time of Cholera, the novel by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I hadn’t for decades and missed richness, complexity, and depth, paralleling a richness, complexity, and depth I missed in nature, my relationships with others, and my relationship with[…] Keep reading →