Dieting in Bush’s Torture Memos

Via the New York Times
The Bush Administration apparently looked at commercial diet plans to justify the calorie-restricted diets it fed prisoners who were being interrogated.
From the Huffington Post:
In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist [...]

April 23, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Politics  No Comments

4,000 Years of Failed Price Control Policies, But Chavez Thinks It Will Work This Time

For the past forty centuries or more, countless civilizations have attempted to feed people by fixing prices and each time it has produced catastrophic consequences.  Whether they are democratic governments, dictators, or socialist reformers these “central planners”, as economists call them, have profound negative effects on the market when they attempt to hijack supply [...]

April 20, 2009  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Politics, Science & Technology  No Comments

“Food Deserts” and What Cities Are Doing About Them

Wal-Mart in Chicago and a Moratorium on Fast-food Joints in LA

I’ve been complaining about the lack of grocery stores in minority and poor neighborhoods for a while.  Apparently such inequity becomes news only when someone comes up with a catchy name for it: food deserts.  Food deserts happen when people do not have access to [...]

February 9, 2009  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics  2 Comments

Waste Not, Want Not, Continued: Food Taboos in American Culture

Jonathan Bloom cares a lot about the food that we leave on our plates, but what about the food that never makes it there in the first place?  The taboo on eating animal organs keeps a lot of very nutritious foodstuffs off the dinner table.  When regular cuts of meat were routinely being shipped overseas [...]

January 3, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Fun Food Facts, Politics  No Comments

Waste Not, Want Not: Donating Food in America

According to Jonathan Bloom at wastedfood.com, Americans waste more than 40% of the food we grow for consumption.  Adding it up, this can cost us over $100 billion annually. Think about it.  Do you ever wonder where that extra bread goes to at the restaurant?  How often do you end up with brown mush in [...]

January 1, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Politics, Uncategorized  5 Comments