Two of these items are representative of what was served in the school lunch program and two represent what came from home-packed lunches. Can you properly identify which are which? During the last several weeks of the school year I had the opportunity to participate in a program with the local primary school. I was the lunch buddy of a fifth-grader. I had a great … Continue reading School lunches and waste

The cause of food waste differs in Western societies from other parts of the world. In the West and other more affluent regions, food is abundant and most waste occurs at a place of sale or in the home. Food waste in many areas of the globe, however, is the result of a lack of sufficient technology and infrastructure. Too much food rots in the … Continue reading Food waste from two different perspectives

I will be at IFT on Tuesday only. The best way to catch me is between 2:00 and 3:00 that afternoon at the Springer booth. I’ll be signing books, but you don’t need to buy one to talk to me! I’ll probably be at the booth for several minutes both before and after the signing. It has been a strange week so far, and I … Continue reading I hope to see you at IFT

Food waste may be the most critical issue in the area of food sustainability today. Dana Gunders provides us with a not-so-gentle nudge to help us improve our behavior in the Waste Free Kitchen Handbook: A Guide to Eating Well and Saving Money by Wasting Less Food. This book focuses our attention on ways to prevent food waste by strategic shopping, sensible storage techniques and … Continue reading Waste Free Kitchen Handbook by Dana Gunders

My quarterly summary of interesting articles relevant to previous posts include: Book signing in Vegas! For those of you planning on attending the Annual Meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists in Las Vegas, I encourage you to attend the session on Processed Food: The Good, The Bad and the Science on Monday morning, June 26, from 9:00-10:15. It promises to provide a variety of … Continue reading Book signing, Maillard browning kills, soda taxes, salt added at home

It is a pleasure to introduce Jake Edmiston who is the author of this week’s post. Jake came to my attention with an article he wrote for the Las Cruses Sun-News. In it he proposed a secret diet which attempts to nudge people to a healthier lifestyle that incorporates more fruits and vegetables. In an era of extreme solutions, I found his approach refreshing. In … Continue reading The No Nonsense Guide to Dieting

We are a snacking nation. We sometimes grab a snack on the way to work instead of eating a healthy breakfast. Hand-held snacks permit us to multitask such as drive a vehicle or scan messages as we continue to eat. We are served snacks at mid-day meetings and evening receptions. Many of us need a snack to tide us over between meals, particularly when unexpected … Continue reading What is a healthy snack?

For years we have been told that obesity is the result of eating too much and exercising too little. This principle is known as energy balance. Energy is consumed in the form of calories in the foods we eat. Energy can be burned off by physical exercise. There are even charts that show us how certain amounts of specific exercises can burn off a certain … Continue reading Do calories matter?

For anyone who has ever wondered why some people can eat to excess without gaining weight while others cut way back on calories and still put on the pounds, Sylvia Tara has some answers. In The Secret Life of Fat: The Science Behind the Body’s Least Understood Organ and What It Means for You, Dr. Tara delves into the biochemistry of fat production, utilization and … Continue reading The Secret Life of Fat by Sylvia Tara

Google alerts me about the latest links to “processed food” every morning, generally ranging from 3-8 articles on the topic.  Almost every day, I read at least one article that urges me to “avoid processed foods.” Such a warning, if followed, promises to help me escape all the chronic illnesses of modern society, it would seem, from Alzheimer’s to tinnitus and every one in between. … Continue reading Fear of processed and formulated foods