Food Reward Fridays

Each Friday, I'm going to post a picture of a modern food so ridiculous it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.  I'm doing this for two reasons:

1. To raise awareness about the unhealthy, fattening foods that are taking over global food culture.  These are highly rewarding, highly palatable, energy-dense foods that drive people to eat in the absence of hunger, and continue eating beyond calorie needs.  In many cases, the foods have been specifically designed to maximize "craveability" and palatability.
2. Because it's funny.

Without further ado... the first lucky winner:

Candy at the Cash Register

Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published an interesting editorial titled "Candy at the Cash Register-- a Risk Factor for Obesity and Chronic Disease."  This fits in well with our discussion of non-homeostatic eating, or eating in the absence of calorie need.

There are a few quotes in this article that I find really perceptive.

Photos and More Gardening

I've needed new professional and blog photos for a long time.  My friend Adam Roe was in town recently, and he happens to be professional photographer, so he graciously offered to snap a few shots.  Despite less than ideal conditions, he did an outstanding job.  Here's a larger version of the photo on my profile (which Blogger shrinks down to a tiny thumbnail):

To see more of Adam's work, head over to his Facebook page, and don't forget to 'like' and share it if you enjoy it.  Adam is currently based in Berlin.

Gardening Update

Here's a photo of today's harvest (taken by me, not Adam; you can tell by the poor focus and primitive lighting):

More Thoughts on Macronutrient Trends

I had a brief positive exchange with Gary Taubes about the NuSI post.  He reminded me that there's an artifact (measurement error) in the USDA data on fat consumption in the year 2000 when they changed assessment methods.  Here are the USDA data on macronutrient consumption since 1970, corrected for loss (28.8%) but not corrected for the artifact:

Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI)

Some of you may have heard of an ambitious new nutrition research foundation called the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI).  In this post, I'll explain what it is, why it matters, and how I feel about it-- from the perspective of an obesity researcher. 

Calories and Carbohydrate: a Natural Experiment

In the lab, we work hard to design experiments that help us understand the natural world.  But sometimes, nature sets up experiments for us, and all we have to do is collect the data.  These are called "natural experiments", and they have led to profound insights in every field of science.  For example, Alzheimer's disease is not usually considered a genetic disorder.  However, researchers have identified rare cases in which AD is inherited in a simple genetic manner.  By identifying the genes involved, and what they do, we were able to increase our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of the disease.

The natural experiment I'll be discussing today began in 1989 with the onset of a major economic crisis in Cuba. This coincided with the loss of the Soviet Union as a trading partner, resulting in a massive economic collapse over the next six years, which gradually recovered through 2000. 

A Late Summer Harvest

It's been a good year for gardening in Seattle, at least in my garden.  Thanks to great new tools* and Steve Solomon's recipe for homemade fertilizer, my house has been swimming in home-grown vegetables all summer.  I'm fortunate that a friend lets me garden a 300 square foot plot behind her house.  Here's a photo of part of today's harvest; various kale/collards, zucchini, tomatoes and the last of the pole beans:

Perfect for the Eocene diet.