September 28, 2019 — Remember the the McDonald’s seaweed burger? It was called the McLean Deluxe. Also later called the McFlopper. To replace some of the fat in a typical burger, food scientists pumped seaweed extract and soy into a modified beef patty. Back in 1991, plant-based diets were not a thing – low fat everything was it. But […]
June 15, 2019 — It’s an awesome responsibility, saving the planet. But apparently, it’s also simple. And many people have an answer. Opt for eating chicken instead of beef. We can go vegan, vegetarian, or to a warmer, fuzzier “plant-based” diet. Beyond Meat is doing quite well by serving up pea protein in Beyond Burgers. Without a doubt, we […]
April 1, 2019 — A broad coalition of health, nutrition, environmental, and animal rights activists are creating quite a stir today with an ambitious new policy proposal. The Lean New Deal aims to stop the obesity syndemic in its tracks. At the same time, it will erase the problem of climate change if fully implemented. This is the product […]
February 6, 2019 — Last week, the Lancet Commission on obesity offered us a pretty bleak view of the future. The current approach to obesity prevention is failing. Food and fuel industries are dooming us to a future that is overweight, underwater, and malnourished. But what do the data say? Ruopeng An and Shen Zhang provide a systematic review […]
January 28, 2019 — Bummer. The Lancet Obesity Commission report is out today and if you thought that obesity might be a tough problem to solve, you really have no clue. It’s bigger than you ever thought. It’s not just an epidemic. Not even calling it a pandemic is big enough. It’s a syndemic. A huge, impossible problem. It’s […]
January 20, 2019 — Civilization is in crisis, the Earth is at risk, and it’s time to put the planet on a better diet. So say Lancet editors Tamara Lucas and Richard Horton as they sum up findings of the EAT-Lancet Commission healthy and sustainable diets. They write: The dominant diets that the world has been producing and eating for the […]
November 17, 2017 — What if everyone became a vegan? No more animals in agriculture. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Robin White and Mary Beth Hall tried to answer that question. They modeled the impact of taking animals out of U.S. agricultural production – on nutrition and on the environment. What they found was a bit […]
March 25, 2017 — The NRDC has a little ray of sunshine for us this week. Americans are eating less beef and that means less carbon going into the atmosphere to heat up the planet. It might also mean healthier dietary patterns. The Environmental Impact of Beef Production Meat production creates a lot of greenhouse gases. And beef is […]
March 26, 2016 — It’s an unlikely meet-up. Storks, food security, climate change, and obesity are coming together in the garbage dumps of Spain and Portugal. A new study published in Movement Ecology finds that European white storks are abandoning their usual migration patterns to feast on abundant junk food in landfills of the Iberian peninsula. Nathalie Gilbert and colleagues […]
March 21, 2015 — Denial, doubt, and prevailing bias create a confusing stew of conflict in nutrition, obesity, tobacco, and environmental policy. The new documentary Merchants of Doubt gives that stew a good stir. The director of Food, Inc has woven together a compelling story about the business of sowing doubt in the service of corporations threatened by the intersection […]
