In 2009 I achieved some significant things that weren’t on my list of goals, although they’re not concrete achievements in the same sense.
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Specifically, “How Food Preferences Vary by Political Ideology”—a poll that correlates self-reported political leanings and self-reported food habits. And verifies a whole pile of preconceptions you might have had… althought the polling organization itself does point out that e.g. much of the variance may be due to geographical rather than political differences.

Even allowing for those, though, the fact that “liberals” are much more interested in eating healthily than “conservatives” is interesting.

I’ve always detested Brussels sprouts. In the past people have repeatedly made the claim that this was because I hadn’t have them cooked right, that my previus bad experiences were due to poor preparation (usually overcooking was cited), and that these would be different. At which point I would try the ones on hand, and gag. It isn’t mere dislike, but a strong negative reaction to them that makes it difficult to eat them at all.

This pattern held, invariant, for more than a decade. Until tonight. Tonight’s Brussels sprouts, made by my friend Joke, were actually palatable, and I voluntarily had more than one. I said I felt that some award should mark the event, she suggested a blog post, and here we are.

Friday’s post about Froot Loops and the “Smart Choices” program reminded me of a portion of the McLibel case, in which McDonald’s brought in an expert witness, Verner Wheelock, to assert that statements claiming that McDonald’s food wasn’t ”nutritious”, or was “junk food”, were false. I can’t find a transcript online—the site that should have them is producing errors instead—but Wheelock defined “nutritious” as “contains nutrients” and “junk food” as “whatever a person doesn’t like”.
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Apparently in response to increased public interest in eating better, the American food manufacturing industry has put together a campaign called Smart Choices. This is essentially a marketing effort masquerading as a health information campaign, as demonstrated quite well by the fact that Froot Loops qualify as a “smart choice”.

To defend this, the president of the Smart Choices board, Eileen T. Kennedy, gave the New York Times one of the most egregious pieces of dodgy rhetoric I’ve seen in quite some time:

“You’re rushing around, you’re trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal,” Dr. Kennedy said, evoking a hypothetical parent in the supermarket. “So Froot Loops is a better choice.”

—William Neuman. “For Your Health, Froot Loops”. The New York Times, 04 September 2009.

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(Actually, I’m considering a return to a wider variety of omnivorism, but that’s not as cool a title.)

I gave up eating meat about ten years ago. Since then I’ve been an ovo-lacto-pesce-vegetarian. Now, for the first time, I’m seriously considering eating meat again.
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The Red Door closed last weekend. I was there for the (sniff!) last time on Saturday, and had typically excellent food. Including the legendary French Toast, which was fantastic. But that’s it, no more Red Door.
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I went by Modern Thai yesterday, and it turns out that they’re not closing after all.
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At dinner with my parents yesterday, I had salmon. This is quite common, I often eat salmon when I’m at their place. But after dinner, my father commented “That might be the last of it.” At first I thought he meant that we’d eaten all of the salmon they’d bought, although I’d thought there was about half left… then he explained that he meant that it might be the last I’d have with them because salmon might no longer be available.
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My favorite local place to eat dinner, Modern Thai, has apparently closed. I say “apparently” because there’s renovation work going on in it, so there’s a small chance it’ll return… but there are no signs on the door to explain anything to patrons, which makes me suspect that it’s gone for good.
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My favorite local place to eat, the Red Door Café, is closing. I’m pretty sad about this, since the food there is just so good.
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