from “Brazilian Nuggets,” a wonderful MP3 blog discovered by Arthur contributor Daniel Chamberlin…

YOU ARE WHAT YOU GROW
by Michael Pollan

April 22, 2007 Sunday New York Times Magazine

A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?

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UNHAPPY MEALS
by Michael Pollan

First published January 28, 2007 in the New York Times Sunday Magazine

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat ”food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

Uh-oh. Things are suddenly sounding a little more complicated, aren’t they? Sorry. But that’s how it goes as soon as you try to get to the bottom of the whole vexing question of food and health. Before long, a dense cloud bank of confusion moves in. Sooner or later, everything solid you thought you knew about the links between diet and health gets blown away in the gust of the latest study.

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courtesy Dave Tompkins!

Here’s an interior page…

Courtesy John Coulthart!

“Eco Aware”
[audio:ecoaware4-3-1.mp3]

“San Francisco”
[audio:sanfranshells.mp3]

More at http://www.alanwattspodcast.com/

“BioJustice 2007 is a week long celebration of sustainable food and alternatives to corporate healthcare. It is being developed by a wide coalition of public interest groups, activists, farmers, scientists, and concerned citizens, working together in response to the biotechnology industry’s international convention scheduled for the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center during May 6-9, 2007.

The biotech industry is bringing thousands of executives, lawyers, public relations people and corporate scientists to Boston to promote their agenda of genetically engineered food, unaffordable high-tech medicines and dangerous ‘biodefense’ research that increases the threat of new biological weapons. Through parades, rallies, educational events and publications, music, a free health care clinic and free daily non-GMO meals, Biojustice 2007 will dramatize popular resistance to this agenda and highlight a wealth of community-based alternatives.

BioJustice 2007 supports a decentralized local food economy that is free of genetically modified organisms, and is committed to working towards an accessible health care system not dominated by pharmaceutical companies and their costly and unreliable synthetic drugs. We oppose the commodification of life and support community resistance to the plans for a biological weapons lab in the heart of the Roxbury neighborhood. Join us!”

Psychobotany: Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Human/Plant Communication
proudly supported by
MACHINE PROJECT &
The CENTER for TACTICAL MAGIC

May 12 – June 16
MACHINE PROJECT
1200 D North Alvarado Street
Los Angeles, CA 9002
213-483-8761

Opening Reception:
8pm May 12

Psychobotany: psycho (from the Greek psyche meaning mind or soul); botany (the study of plants).

Psychobotany cultivates a cultural terrain that includes a wide array of efforts at human/plant communication. Artists, scientists, subcultures, religions, activists, and visionaries all share plots in the field of Psychobotany. Combining elements of scientific truth, spiritual beliefs, aesthetic savvy, and social expression, Psychobotany is a fertile ground where the diverse cultural roots of human/plant communication can take hold.

Psychobotany blazes a meandering trail between the strict constraints of objective, peer-reviewed, rationalism and the unrestrained embrace of uncritical idealism. Along the way, one can expect to find military scientists rubbing shoulders with druids; tree-sitters cavorting with tech wizards; and conceptual artists conspiring with herbalists.

Featuring the efforts of:
Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
Botanicalls
Cleve Backster
Center for Tactical Magic
Peter Coffin
DARPA
Earth Films
Molly Frances
Marc Herbst
Denise King
John Lifton
Richard Lowenberg
Jim Wiseman
Tom Zahuranec
…plus Moses, Druids, and More!

Please see psychobotany.com for further details, including screenings, performances, and presentations.

Psychobotany is curated by Aaron Gach.