I've posted this before, and about this topic several times before, and may well again: I believe it's the No. 1 issue facing all Americans, and I believe it will only be solved when we demand that it be solved. Yes, that's somewhat unlikely in present-day America, but it's going to happen, because it has to.

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I do not get why the farm bills being contemplated this week by Congress would slash food-stamp aid. Read more »

Here's the problem: As I'm sitting here at my "coffice," about to tap out this post, and I hear a guy at the bar, vapidly chatting with the coffee stirrer to his left: "Yeah, I try not to turn on the news too much." No context, of course, but his solution is just not to listen. It's the "solution" for tens of millions of Americans.

But it's not a solution, because it doesn't solve. Read more »

[I originally published this post a year (and three days) ago, but I'm bumping it to the top because it fits the thread of discussion kindled by Michele Simon's Eat Drink Politics report of last week.]

Based on my early experience with them, and on what I've heard from others of their experiences, I have long held opprobrium for registered dietitians. But it has recently bubbled over again. Read more »

In Washington Monthly, reporter Lina Khan lays bare the scandalous treatment of the nation's farmers at the hands of Big Ag. The story shows that we've been here before, with a handful of meat companies controlling their suppliers' markets, which gives hope that we can escape this stranglehold again, as we did in the '20a. Read more »

I subscribe to the news service operated by the International Association for the Study of Obesity, and I think you should, too. But the purpose of this post is not to pimp but to promote a couple of related stories on this week's report. Read more »

A persistent theme in my topics lately has been the hypocrisy and rank dishonesty of corporations and their spokesman, such as when they insist on the standard of personal responsibility, but refuse to take the same responsibility for their own actions.

On my way to another installment of that, I really want to ask: Why aren’t more people — most people! — offended when they are lied to and manipulated? Most people are, when they realize it, but somehow, when corporations do it ... all the time, it’s just business as normal. Read more »

Ask anyone, and “protecting our kids” is one of our highest values — we have child endangerment laws, and even well into their teens, we ignore their “consent” for some behaviors because we don’t think they’re old enough to know better.

But we only worry about intrusions on their bodies, not their minds. Read more »

I was talking politically with someone recently who advised me to back off on my desires and especially my expectations of what policies people will go for, and that raises a pretty fundamental question of advocacy.

Is it better to ask for what you want, or for what you think you can get?

I’m sure community and issue organizers have explored the question exhaustively. that they have concluded that no answer is always correct, and that they know when to zig and when to zag.

But I ain’t them. Read more »

As an editor of 30 years and a paid wordsmith for even longer, I am sensitized to the use of language, and I continue to be tickled by the way Big Food twists the words of others to make their arguments seem absurd.

A case in point is how the soda industry is reacting to New York City's ban on super-large sodas. They proclaim the unfairness of putting all of obesity's blame on soda alone, for example, when no is doing that. Read more »