I know I’m not supposed to be blogging daily anymore (to preserve my health and sanity), but it just doesn’t feel right not to share with you some of the many interesting articles and links that come across my screen at a rapid clip each day. Lately, though, I’ve been playing catch-up on life – and laundry – after spending almost three weeks doing nothing but producing “Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory.” So please forgive this down and dirty “link dump” of articles and posts worth reading:
Dirt and Kimchee: Your New Best Friends
Run, don’t walk, to read Michael Pollan’s cover story in last Sunday’s New York Times about the role of microbes in fostering human health. While this topic might sound far afield of TLT’s focus on “kids and food,” you’ll soon learn that our “microbiomes” may play a role in some issues frequently discussed here, including childhood obesity and childhood food allergies. Fascinating stuff.
Pay People To Cook?
Here’s a thought-provoking opinion piece by Kristin Wartman arguing that the government should foster home cooking through financial incentives and the tax code.
Is Anything OK to Eat?
I love this post on today’s Real Mom Nutrition blog in which Sally Kuzemchak is fed up with the culture of fear that surrounds food discussions on Facebook. Just a few hours after reading Sally’s piece, I read on Facebook about the “dark side” of Greek yogurt (the production of which creates environmental toxins), reminding me of another recent piece I saw on Facebook about the “dark side” of quinoa (now so expensive it can’t be eaten by the native populations that grow it). All of these concerns are valid, of course, but it’s hard to know what to do about them while still feeding yourself and your family well. Sigh.
School Food Is Better in Japan (and France, and Italy, and Lots of Other Places)
I tire sometimes of sharing glowing reports of how great school food is in other countries, mostly because those countries’ governments give their schools far more funding than our Congress provides, and because those cultures often think about food in a very different way than Americans do, so their schools aren’t forced to fight the same uphill battles. Nonetheless, to the extent we can learn anything from other countries, here’s the latest report about superior school food – this time in Japan.
Does Teaching Kids About Healthful Eating Cause Eating Disorders?
Christina Le Beau of Spoonfed answers with an emphatic “no” in this recent post.
Marion Nestle Tells It Like It Is
This is now a few weeks old but I wanted to share this Politico op-ed from Marion Nestle (Food Politics) and Rob Waters explaining – in response to another op-ed by a Republican Congressman – why it’s actually OK for the Center for Disease Control to tell Americans that some foods are, you know, not very good for us.
Happy reading!
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Kristin Wartman says
Thanks for the mention!
Elle says
Bettina, it may take me the rest of the day to get through all of these links but I do not doubt that it is worth it.
I also read the article “Is Anything OK to eat” and there are a lot of valid points. If we keep focusing so much on what other people tell is us ok or not ok to eat, will we ever eat anything that we want?
Also, where are they getting their information? While some of it may be very valid and informed, some of it is also people blindly sharing what they have heard without verifying any of it.
It is very interesting to compare the school lunches of various countries. I am curious as to what the worldwide average is for government funding and where each country falls in relation to that average.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Elle: I’m glad to keep you busy with these links! And I don’t have a worldwide average at my fingertips but I recall that in France, for example, schools had about $2.50 to spend on food alone (this figure may be higher now), whereas in the US, after overhead, most schools have about $1 and change left over for the food.