Tagged With "comfort food"
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Re: The Difference Between Being Broke and Being Poor: It’s a recognition that comes in the aisle of a grocery store.
Wow. That was excellently told. I think we need more first person stories like this about people's relationship to food when living in hardship, trauma, or crisis.
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Re: Soil-to-Sanctuary: Black Churches, Powerful Cultural Forces, Set Their Sights on Food Security
Thank you, Monica, for posting this powerful, uplifting, and brimming with hope article! Please know I'm cloning on our ACEs in Faith-Based organizations community. What the Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore has initiated is truly a national model. From Leilani Clark's article, "The explicit emphasis on Black churches is intentional, says Brown. Even as private Black land owners were drained of their resources, Black churches continue to own property across the U.S. Longevity is...
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Re: Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong
I also love this tidbit from the article: The most effective health interventions aren't actually health interventions—they are policies that ease the hardship of poverty and free up time for movement and play and parenting. Developing countries with higher wages for women have lower obesity rates, and lives are transformed when healthy food is made cheaper. A pilot program in Massachusetts that gave food stamp recipients an extra 30 cents for every $1 they spent on healthy food increased...
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‘Building Wealth and Health Network’ Reduces Food Insecurity Without Providing Food [drexel.edu]
As the coronavirus pandemic forces so many to reckon with growing food insecurity and increased health challenges, the Building Wealth and Health Network program of Drexel University’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities is reducing food insecurity and improving mental health – without distributing any food or medicine. How? By focusing on group experiences that promote healing and help people save money and take control over their own finances. Parents of young children, who completed the...
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How Grocery Shopping Online Could Help Close Equity Gaps (calhealthreport.org)
Late last month, California’s food stamps program, CalFresh, began allowing beneficiaries to buy groceries online at participating stores—a recent upgrade to the program that lets families skip potentially perilous grocery shopping trips during the coronavirus pandemic and limit the spread of the disease. Now, food policy advocates are asking the state to provide the same purchasing opportunity for pregnant women and families with young children who get benefits through WIC . “We applaud the...
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Tighter federal rules end free meals for students in California and nationwide (Ukiah Daily Journal)
By Ali Tadayon and Joyce Tagal, August 27, 2020, EdSource. Millions of students and families in California and nationwide who have come to rely on free grab-and-go meals during the past five months of the pandemic may no longer qualify for the food service. Since the start of the Covid-19 closures, school districts have served millions of packaged meals at no cost and without eligibility requirements to all children at food distribution sites made possible by a series of federal waivers, the...
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This Harlem chef is cooking up international dishes to strengthen his local community (upworthy.com)
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected diverse communities due largely in part to social factors such as inadequate access to housing, income, dietary options, education and employment — all of which have been shown to affect people's physical health. Recognizing that inequity, Harlem-based chef JJ Johnson sought out to help his community maximize its health during the pandemic — one grain at a time. Johnson manages FIELDTRIP , a health-focused restaurant that strives to bring...
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How to Feed Ourselves in a Time of Climate Crisis (yesmagazine.org)
Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about adaptation when you’re dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing zones. How can a world of 7 billion—and growing—feed itself? Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system. Land Ownership 1. Indigenous land sovereignty The world is watching as historic land reforms on the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu show how to return land...
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New Transforming Trauma Episode: Complex Trauma, Self-Sabotage, Diet Culture, and Eating Disorder Recovery with Iris McAlpin
T ransforming Trauma Episode 030: Complex Trauma, Self-Sabotage, Diet Culture, and Eating Disorder Recovery with Iris McAlpin In this episode of Transforming Trauma, our host Sarah Buino interviews NARM Practitioner and coach Iris McAlpin. Iris specializes in eating disorder recovery, complex trauma, and self-sabotage. Iris also hosts a podcast called Pure Curiosity which seeks to facilitate nuanced conversations about the human experience and de-stigmatize mental health challenges. Iris...
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Doctor's Orders: Program Prescribes Fresh Fruits, Vegetables to Idahoans [publicnewsservice.org]
Eric Tegethoff, Public News Service (12/10/2020) BOISE, Idaho -- A pilot program that prescribes a trip to the produce aisle has been a success in Idaho. The Nebraska-based Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition evaluated the Idaho Hunger Relief Task Force's (IHRTF) Prescription for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables program, which offers vouchers to food-insecure patients with diabetes and prediabetes. It found significant improvements in participants' health; Julie Walker, manager of diabetes...
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COVID-19 Sparks a Rebirth of the Local Farm Movement (yesmagazine.org)
Waters was worried about the vulnerable situation her workers and producers were finding themselves in. She rushed to establish a subscription CSA, which stands for community supported agriculture, offering weekly food boxes that could be picked up at the shuttered restaurant, filled with goodies from her regular producers like Cannard. This CSA model, where buyers invest in a farm’s annual production upfront in exchange for a regular share of the harvest, is built on long-term relationships...
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What the pandemic has done to racial inequality in North Carolina [charlotteobserver.com]
By Gene Nichol, The Charlotte Observer, December 28, 2020 It doesn’t happen as often as one might wish. But, on occasion, you can still be surprised by what someone says. For example, earlier this month, the Donald Trump-appointed Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, explained to the Senate Banking Committee: “Disparate economic outcomes on the basis of race, have been with us for a very long time, they are a long-standing aspect of our economy, and there is a great risk that the...
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Addressing Child Hunger When School Is Closed — Considerations during the Pandemic and Beyond [nejm.org]
By Mary Kathryn Poole, Sheila E. Fleischhacker, and Sara N. Bleich, The New England Journal of Medicine, January 20, 2021 T he Covid-19 pandemic has moved hunger out of the shadows in the United States. Record numbers of Americans, including one in four families with school-age children, don’t have reliable access to food. 1 Congress has authorized several innovative programs and substantial appropriations to respond to this crisis. Despite these efforts, food insecurity — a long-standing...
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Immigrant Families Reconnect to Cultural Practices During the Pandemic (yesmagazine.org)
From making comfort food to speaking with ancestors, immigrant families across the U.S. are turning to cultural traditions to cope with the isolation and stress of quarantine. Latino communities have been affected disproportionately by the virus. In Texas, Latinos make up almost 40% of the population but account for 53% of the state’s COVID-19-related deaths, according to CDC data from December 2020. During a challenging pandemic, comfort food has helped many of us sustain ourselves, whether...
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How adverse childhood experiences influence eating disorders
People who have eating disorders frequently have a history of adverse childhood experiences and trauma. Find out what parents need to know
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Prison Food
Community manager, Adrienne Markworth was interviewed for this piece (but not quoted) on the costs of poor quality food in prisons and how farm to table practices can help improve outcomes for the incarcerated and their families. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/opinion/prison-food-farming-health.html?searchResultPosition=4
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Moving Beyond the Scarcity Mindset (nonprofitquarterly.org)
Excerpted from Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries: New Tools to End Hunger by Katie Martin. Copyright © 2021 by Katie Martin. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, DC. The following section draws from portions of Chapter 3, “A Paradigm Shift in How We Talk about Hunger,” pp. 46–50, 52–53. Scarcity Mentality: How to Move from Deficit-Based to Strength-Based Language A key issue that is holding us back from really tackling and ending hunger is the focus on not having enough.
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Food Insecurity and the Risk of Obesity, Depression, and Self-Rated Health in Women (Women’s Health Report)
By Sydney K. Willis,1,* Sara E. Simonsen,2 Rachael B. Hemmert,2 Jami Baayd,2 Kathleen B. Digre,3 and Cathleen D. Zick4. Women’s Health Reports Volume 1.1, 2020 DOI: 10.1089/whr.2020.0049 Accepted May 21, 2020. Abstract Background/Introduction/Objective: Recent studies have shown that food insecurity is associated with obe- sity, depression, and other adverse health outcomes although little research has been focused on these relation- ships in underrepresented cultural and social groups. In...
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Legal & Policy Strategies for Health Care & Food System Partners [changelabsolutions.org]
By Change Lab Solutions, May 2021 How can cross-sector partnerships foster a just food system and support healthy communities? What do health care systems, local governments, and community organizations need to consider when partnering to increase healthy food access for those who need it most? Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity rates in the United States have risen to unprecedented levels, affecting not only individual health but health equity in our communities. To address...
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There Is Enough Food, Just Not Enough Access (yesmagazine.org)
Jammella Anderson kneels beside a bright pink refrigerator on a sidewalk in Albany, New York, stocking its shelves with fresh loaves of bread and heads of lettuce—food that is free for the taking. A passerby stops to ask how to donate. She tells them where and how to sign up to give veggies, dairy, or prepared meals. They continue walking, then double back and ask Anderson whether they can donate the stale contents of their apartment fridge ahead of a move. The answer is an emphatic “no.” To...
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I Grew Up With the Shame of Food Insecurity. Decades Later, I Still Obsess Over What I Eat
"I remember watching my mother stand at the supermarket register, anxiously tugging at her shaggy dark blonde hair, repeatedly tucking it behind an ear. Her green eyes, amplified by thick glasses with rose-tinted plastic frames, scanned the running total. She’d hold an envelope open with one hand and whip out coupons like a blackjack dealer, placing them on each corresponding item to make sure the cashier scanned them together...." https://www.bonappetit.com/story/childhood-food-insecurity
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How ACEs Impact Unconscious Eating
If you suffer from unconscious eating, your ACEs may be impacting your ability to lose weight. Unfortunately, a simple diet or exercise program won’t work because it doesn’t address the WHY behind your unconscious eating patterns in the first place. Learn the link between ACEs and unconcious eating.
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Emotional Eating as a Way to Cope With ACEs
When we engage in emotional eating, we’re using food as our coping mechanism of choice to deal with whatever is inside. After all, it’s easy, accessible, and gives a perceived sense of relief—at least for a little while. The problem is, we never actually deal with the deeper emotion, sometimes rooted in ACEs. It just gets stuffed down and repressed. Then, there's the weight gain...
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The New Face of Hunger
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hunger/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=812615ed-442c-498c-9566-a056b331bb0a
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For children, food insecurity means not only hunger but also stress, sadness
"ANN ARBOR—Parents who experience food insecurity might think they’re protecting their children from their family’s food situation by eating less or different foods so their children can be spared. But a new study led by University of Michigan researchers shows that children know more about food insecurity—the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food—than their parents give them credit for." Finish reading here : ...
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Obesity Strategy: policies placing responsibility on individuals don't work - so why does the (UK) government keep using them?
"The government has recently announced a strategy aimed at reducing obesity in the UK. It will introduce a ban on unhealthy food advertisements on TV before a certain hour, end “buy one, get one free” junk food deals, and create more comprehensive calorie contents on food and drinks. The government has also launched the Better Health campaign, to motivate overweight and obese people to lose weight. The programme offers tools and support from NHS weight management services, including a Better...
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This is What Trauma-Informed Hunger Relief Looks Like
CUMAC’s two-story facility in Northern New Jersey has the look and feel of a standard food bank, with a warehouse, a handful of trucks, a client-choice pantry, and even a small garden. In practice, the operation has a mission that goes much further than giving out food or even addressing the root causes of hunger. In the view of Executive Director Mark Dinglasan, problems related to food insecurity go back — way back — to childhood traumas and the harmful impacts they collectively have on...
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Utilizing “Food as Medicine” to Serve San Diegans with Critical Illnesses (sdfoundation.org)
Food insecurity has been a significant adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis. But for one local nonprofit, hunger relief isn’t “one size fits all.” “Our mission is to provide nutritious food to people living with critical illnesses,” shared Alberto Cortes, CEO at local nonprofit Mama’s Kitchen . The organization develops and delivers medically tailored meals to people navigating HIV, diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease and cancer. “Our goal with our services isn’t just...
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Phthalates on the fast-food menu: Chemicals linked to health problems found at McDonalds, Taco Bell (usatoday.com)
A new study shows that chemicals known as phthalates, which have been linked to health problems, have been detected in food from popular chains like McDonald’s, Chipotle and more. The peer-reviewed analysis was published this week in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology by researchers from George Washington University, the Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio, Texas), Boston University and Harvard University. The research includes items from McDonald’s,...
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Community-Driven Approaches to Addressing Food Insecurity (childtrends.org)
Access to food is a human right, [1] yet in the United States, an estimated 13 million children may experience food insecurity in 2021, [2] which means they lack consistent access to adequate and nutritious food for a healthy, active life. [3] The nation’s history of systemic racism, including discriminatory employment and housing practices, has kept Black families from acquiring equal wealth and access to resources (e.g., grocery stores) compared to their White counterparts. [4] As a...
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Meditations on Enough: 5 meditations on what “enough” means, from food to rest to diversity. (yesmagazine.org)
“Enough food” is each person having daily access to an average of 2,353 calories of culturally appropriate, locally available, affordable, unrefined, and delectable nourishment. The good news is that we already grow enough food to feed 10 billion people . The challenges are that the food is not fairly distributed, a lot of it is thrown away, and the process of growing it industrially is trashing the planet. Contrary to conventional mythology, smallholder farms and regenerative agriculture...
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Nourishing the Brain Wounded by Childhood Adversity
The right mix of nutrients revitalizes the brain that's been wounded by ACEs. Good nutrition can quickly improve mood and functioning in the present, while improving the potential to rewire disturbing memories imprinted in childhood.
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5 Tips for Surviving the Holidays With an Eating Disorder (yesmagazine.org)
As someone with an eating disorder history, the holidays, which should be joyful and exciting, can be awkward—and even destructive—as the same problems present themselves year after year: We’re expected to spend time with family members who can be jarring. We’re faced not only with an abundance of food, but also open judgments about how much (or how little) we eat. Our bodies are considered small-talk conversation starters, like the size of our waists are as banal as the fluctuating weather.
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The Food Aid Delivery App (ssir.org)
Between 30 and 40 percent of the US food supply goes to waste each year. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that nearly 80 billion pounds of food end up in landfills annually. This figure takes on a greater significance in the context of another food crisis: food insecurity. More than 10 percent of US households are food insecure, and the nonprofit Feeding America reports that this number will increase due to the economic and unemployment consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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I Hired a Cooking Therapist to Deal With My Anxiety
I went in as a skeptic and emerged with a new perspective on food (and myself). By ZAN ROMANOFF June 16, 2021 Cooking therapy has me stressed before it even begins. After a calendar year of completely uneventful curbside pickups from my local grocery store, I get home on a spring Monday morning to discover that Vons packed only half of my order—which means that 30 minutes before I’m supposed to be in a virtual session with Debra Borden , LCSW, I have to make a last-minute grocery run. Even...
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When eating is traumatic and what parents can do to help
Sometimes eating can be traumatic. Traumatic sensations and memories of eating can lead to an eating disorder. Parents must work hard to understand which foods and eating environments are triggering. It also helps to know why they are triggering and learn how to make eating less stressful. Why is eating traumatic? There can be many reasons why food becomes traumatic. A combination of sensory issues, beliefs, and experiences can come together to create a stressful eating environment for some...
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Food Insecurity & Children With Disabilities
Dear PACEs Community, Sharing out my new policy brief about the developmental consequences of food insecurity among children with disabilities: Household Food Insecurity Associated with Decline in Attentional Focus of Young Children with Disabilities A downloadable PDF version is attached. Please feel to forward to your networks who might find this relevant to their work. And, of course, please reach out if you have any questions or comments. Thank you! --Kevin Kevin A. Gee, Ed.D. Associate...
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Discriminatory Housing Practices and Food Environment Disparities [publichealthpost.org]
By Rick Sadler , July 15, 2022, the Public Health Post We know that structural racism has far-reaching and enduring impacts on the built environment of neighborhoods and on the health of the people who live there. Structural racism both contributes to and is compounded by neighborhood disadvantage , the overconcentration of alcohol outlets , the incidence of firearm violence , the unequal redevelopment of urban areas via gentrification , and rates of childhood obesity . And yet, most of the...
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Are Restaurant Wait Times Getting Longer? Learn4Life’s Culinary CTE students are helping to solve the problem
Learn4Life high school students participate in a culinary skills career technical education course and Camryn (pictured below), shows off the baking creation she made during class. National Culinary Month highlights the importance of teaching foodservice and cooking skills to high schoolers who make up a big part of the restaurant industry workforce. LOS ANGELES (July 8, 2022) – Why does it take so long to get your order when you go out to eat? The number one problem is a decline in...
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The U.S. diet is deadly. Here are 7 ideas to get Americans eating healthier (npr.org)
Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Author: Allison Aubrey's article, please click here. The data are stark: the typical American diet is shortening the lives of many Americans. Diet-related deaths outrank deaths from smoking, and about half of U.S. deaths from heart disease – nearly 900 deaths a day – are linked to poor diet. The pandemic highlighted the problem, with much worse outcomes for people with obesity and other diet-related diseases. "We're really in a nutrition crisis...
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Inside the Global Effort to Keep Perfectly Good Food Out of the Dump [nytimes.com]
By Somini Sengupta, Photo: Andri Tambunan/The New York Times, The New York Times, October 13, 2022 In Seoul, garbage cans automatically weigh how much food gets tossed in the trash. In London, grocers have stopped putting date labels on fruits and vegetables to reduce confusion about what is still edible. California now requires supermarkets to give away — not throw away — food that is unsold but fine to eat. Around the world, a broad array of efforts are being launched to tackle two...
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From Trauma to Resiliency: Reflecting on our inner journey
Back in 2019, we began planning to write a book, From Trauma to Resiliency, that would describe the experiences of survivors who have experienced multiple traumas and who have benefitted from relationship-based, collaborative family-school-community-based services. We asked colleagues doing amazing work in San Diego County to contribute chapters, and they shared stories of oppressed, traumatized groups of survivors that include, people who have faced abuse, war, and poverty,...
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Two Young Leaders Address Food Insecurity (nonprofitquarterly.org)
Image Credit: ShonEjai on pixabay.com To read more of Isaiah Thompson's article, please click here. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, two brothers from Sudbury, MA, Camden and Colton Francis, then 16 and 12, respectively, were, like other kids around the country, stuck at home. All the while, they noticed signs of distress around them—including a stark rise in food insecurity exacerbated by the pandemic. “We saw news reports which were showing people waiting in very long lines...
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Empty Office Buildings Are Being Turned Into Vertical Farms [smithsonianmag.com]
Vertical farming can produce as much as traditional farming while using less water and less energy—if executed correctly. Area 2 Farms By Ciara O'Brien, Smithsonian Magazine, July 11, 2023 In an old paper company and warehouse building, machines are whirring again. But instead of reams of paper pressed and cut, this warehouse is home to Area 2 Farms , which now pumps out greens, herbs and root vegetables. There’s even a weekly CSA serving customers year round, all in an effort to bring...
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Why a food addiction many Americans say they struggle with is one experts can’t agree on
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/health/food-addiction-help-symptoms-wellness/index.html CNN — "About 1 in 8 Americans over 50 struggle with an unhealthy relationship with highly processed food that goes well beyond the occasional binge or midnight snack, according to a recent poll. Known as food addiction, the condition isn’t limited to older adults — previous food addiction data had primarily centered around young- to middle-age adults up to around 50, said Ashley Gearhardt, lead author of...
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Paradox of Listening to Our Bodies
The Paradox of Listening to Our Bodies Interoception—the inner sense linking our bodies and minds—can confuse as much as it can reveal. By Jessica Wapner July 6, 2023 "My husband worries a lot about his heart. “I feel something right here,” he’ll say, pointing to a spot on his chest. I have a hard time knowing how to respond to these reports; unless I’m doing cardio, I’m never aware of my heartbeat, and even then I can’t really feel it. After my husband’s cardiologist told him that there was...
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Our Brains Weren't Designed for This Kind of Food
Our society has long treated weight gain as a function of insufficient willpower. If you’re overweight, it’s because you chose to be. You ate too much, or you didn’t exercise enough. You lack the virtue and the discipline of the thin. This story is great. It is great for punishing anyone who struggles with weight. It is great for justifying discrimination and maltreatment. But it is just nonsense if you take even a cursory look at the data. And Stephan Guyenet has looked — and I put this...
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Teaching Poor People About Food Is Not the Answer
I've started and scrapped and restarted this essay several times. Imagine the camera zooming in on a wastebasket filled with crumpled typewritten pages, my thoughts written in red pen across the top. Too mean , this introduction about how teaching people a new recipe won't help them eat more vegetables. Too accusatory , this one asking if the skills you are teaching were requested by the people you teach. Be more human . Because the desire to teach is at the core of being human. We want to...
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The American Food System Is Failing Women
Americans today are both obese and starving. We’re spending more than ever on an ever-widening array of diets, and yet hunger and obesity are increasingly driven by a web of overlapping factors. According to the latest data, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2018, some 40 percent of American adults are obese. Meanwhile, nearly 15 percent of Americans live in food-insecure households, unsure where their next meal will come from. We have a tendency in this...
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They Rejected Diet Culture 30 Years Ago. Then They Went Mainstream.
It’s 6 p.m. on the patio at Il Moro, a twinkly-lit Italian gastro pub in West Los Angeles, and Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole are intuitively eating their dinner. They start with warm, crusty bread, liberally dipped in olive oil, and then move on to salad, branzino and the penne tossed with little pillows of burrata that Ms. Resch ordered for the table. In accordance with one of intuitive eating’s 10 principles — “challenge the food police” — neither woman moralizes about the carbs. “The...