September 28, 2023 — “Conjecture is good, but knowing is better.” This bit of wisdom from the Indiana University School of Public Health came to mind yesterday at the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions, hosted by the National Academy of Sciences. The subject of the day was the relationship between culture and obesity – really quite a fascinating subject. Four […]
October 27, 2022 — Most of us who think about food systems have a vague sense that our diet has a meaningful impact on the health of the planet. Beef is typically thought to be a bad actor. Eating more plant based foods should help. But an ambitious new study in Nature Sustainability aims to assign specific numbers to […]
October 21, 2022 — Among the many interesting presentations from three days of focus on causes of obesity, a just-so story stands out. We heard a number of just-so stories this week – untested fables to explain how we came to have so much obesity. They fit neatly with with an agenda that calls for a discussion of conjectures. […]
September 20, 2022 — Global food systems are putting more food – and more nutritious food – within within the reach of more people than ever before. But what are the outcomes for human and environmental health? For nutrition and equity? Frankly it’s a mixed picture. Food systems have evolved all over the world to crank out sufficient calories […]
November 7, 2021 — Can we get a two-for-one deal on dietary and planetary health, please? The news has been full of dispatches from the climate summit in Scotland this week. Some folks are frustrated by too much talk and too little action. The costs of a warming planet are mounting. So the University of South Australia has a […]
October 11, 2021 — As rationalizations go, imagining huge health benefits from eating more plant-based diets is not terrible. Trisha Pasricha writes in the Washington Post that pneumonia, diverticulitis, diabetes, and cancers are linked to regularly eating meat. She even points to a study of COVID and plant-based diets to illustrate how beneficial such diets might be: “In a […]
September 9, 2021 — Healthy, green – plant-based – alternatives to food products from animals are generating quite a buzz right now. Restaurants are riding a wave of interest in this concept. With the planet burning and flooding everywhere we turn, wouldn’t it be nice if dining at HipCityVeg could help turn things around? New Forms of Food Multiplying […]
August 26, 2021 — Remember when the pandemic was new and we were not allowed to laugh? They canceled April Fool’s Day in 2020. Well, today it’s back. We refuse to believe this press release from the University of Michigan School of Public Health is not a prank. Their environmental scientists are telling us that one hot dog will […]
July 23, 2021 — The UK has a proposal for a new national food strategy, but it seems to be sailing in some very choppy waters. The most noted feature of this plan is its proposal to tax the sugar and salt that goes into processed, restaurant, and catered food to help overcome obesity. In addition, there’s a proposal […]
May 13, 2021 — Food systems are a key ingredient in the problem we face with obesity. But working toward healthier food systems is a challenge that goes well beyond the cartoonish ideas that surface in some public health campaigns. For example, marketing practices can be a vexing problem. Food security is a dimension of the problem that came […]
