Please stop posting interesting stuff! Can't you see I am trying to work here?
Current diversions:
Sugar is the Latest Supermarket Demon, NY Times (via Alaina).
Dr. Stuart Fischer, who worked for nine years with the low-carb diet specialist Dr. Robert Atkins and now runs his own nutrition practice in Manhattan, contends that artificial sweeteners do nothing for a person's "overall health" because they perpetuate cravings for sweet foods.
"They remind dieters about the taste of the forbidden fruit," Dr. Fischer said. "Does Alcoholics Anonymous recommend alcohol-free beer? Of course not." Dr. Fischer said he counsels patients to cut out all sweet foods from their diet to eliminate sugar cravings, which he says can lay the groundwork for Type II diabetes.
Dr. David Katz, a nutrition specialist and professor of public health at the Yale University School of Medicine, says that in his 15 years of treating patients he has observed that people who consume a lot of artificially sweetened foods also end up eating an excess of foods loaded with regular sugar, negating any savings in calories. "If you're exposed to sweet foods and drinks often, the threshold for satisfaction goes up," Dr. Katz said.
Bitter Greens Journal on the billionth acre of GM crops planted.
Also, exploding yields led to tumbling prices. Not coincidentally, the
same period described by Business Week saw the total number of U.S.
farms plunge from 5 million to under 2 million.
There's a lot
of despair and pain built into that number, lots of tradition ruined,
families and entire areas devastated. The quality of our food, too, has
paid a dear price.
And as GM crops continue their awesome ascent, I fear, the unpaid bills of industrial agriculture will continue piling up.
The
only salute I can offer Monsanto on the occasion of the billion-acre
milestone is a middle finger raised high in the air. I hope more
farmers join me in this gesture.
Halting the march of unreason, including organic foods (SF Chronicle).
Lord Taverne characterizes as "a monument to irrationality" the trend toward consumers buying overpriced organic food, promoted by advocates whose "principles are founded on a scientific howler; it is governed by rules that have no rhyme or reason, and its propaganda could have an adverse effect on the health of poor people."