The new food morality

The Hoover Institution recently published this piece on the shifting morality of food and sex. Take it for what it's worth, but the increasing religious/mystical component of food and its followers is a subject deserving of more exposure. This serious essay provides a good deal of it.

Food mythology momentum

The tide is shifting, it seems.
While there are still outbreaks of breathless nonsense about food (acai, anyone?), the amount of writing I bump in to that tries to deflate all the puffery about cuisine and diet has increased. Take this piece that's right on the nose about food mythology.

Screw you, Powerbar

I suspect there will be plenty more evidence, like this, emerging that supports the idea that most athletic-related food is bogus. Good.
How can one be inherently pro-commerce yet anti food hucksterism you might ask? Simple. The market works most effectively with the widest possible access to information, including research that debunks all the food nonsense that is taken as fact. Powerbar, and all the athletic-focused dreck on the market, is a small, brief blip in American food history. The sooner they become history, because consumers choose real food over their stuff, the better.

A (glancing) blow to the food puritans

Chicago has lifted its 2-year-old ban on foie gras. Such news would typically merit open celebration as legislators are rightfully shamed in to removing themselves from your dinner choices. But, as the article makes clear, there is no moral victory in what seems to be another example of legislative spinelessness and railroading (no, not unique to Chicago, but it sure seems that way).
Moreover, I confess that...I don't love foie gras. That's right. And the practice of force feeding geese seems just odd. Nothing that keeps me awake at all at night. But, odd. None of which encourages the slightest desire to have our fearless legislators ban the practice. As always I appreciate the voice of the people - the dining public. If and when they decide not to buy the stuff any more, that'll be fine with me.

Greening

For the most recent foray into culinary eco-Stakhanovism scroll to the bottom of today's Inside Scoop.
It will be fascinating to see whether there is any correlation at all between earning the highest blessings of this group, and creative, good food. Apparently it's not enough to earn thimmakka's certification, a perfectly fine idea. One must aspire to greenest-of-all status. Another tiresome attempt to impose uber-virtue on food.