Food and Farming
Don’t Put a Fork in It
While most Americans were enjoying the holiday season or stressing out over the nation's imminent leap off the so-called fiscal cliff, the Food and Drug Administration delivered some big news as quietly as possible. On December 21, the agency announced that...
Fat Demons
My grandmother lay in bed at a hospice facility, days away from death. With her loving children by her side, she looked at her belly and — as she had done for all of the years I'd known her — complained that she was too fat. What? What did she think six-pack abs would...
Step Away from That Desk
Do you eat lunch at your desk? Alone? Continuing to work as you chew? Welcome to the new wondrous world of work in which employees feel intense pressure from bosses to labor right through lunch. In a survey, 62 percent of people with desk jobs said they grab a snack...
Fishy Genes
Coke Still Needs to Get Real
Does Coca-Cola think we’re all really stupid? For the first time, the company is using its slick commercials to address obesity. Obesity became a high-profile issue in the 1990s, when the government started to classify more than half of Americans as overweight or...
Beyoncé’s Not-so-Super Move
On Super Bowl Sunday, 50 lucky fans will be on the field with R&B superstar Beyoncé during the halftime show, thanks to a Pepsi sweepstakes. Slightly less lucky winners will have their photos seen by millions during the halftime show, even though they won't be at...
This Year, Resolve to Love Your Body
After a month of gorging ourselves on gingerbread, stuffing ourselves with Christmas cookies, and washing it all down with so much eggnog that we have to ask Santa to bring us clothes in a larger size, we end our year with a final night of feasting and champagne. Then...
This Week in OtherWords: Kaul Writes Again and Richardson Becomes Our Newest Weekly Columnist
He's back. This week in OtherWords, columnist Donald Kaul makes a surprise return to weigh in on the chilling Newtown shootings. Since he's still on the mend and says that life's just so much better without deadlines, my best advice to his many devoted fans is to...
A More Humane Holiday Ham
"What are your Christmas traditions?" I asked the family I was staying with in Kenya earlier this year while doing some research. I wondered whether Kenyans decorated Christmas trees or awaited Santa Claus like American children do. My host's response surprised me....
Solving the Twinkie Murder Case
Far from greedy, however, the 18,500 unionized workers are quite reasonable and very loyal — in fact, they had previously given back $100 million in annual wages and benefits to help the company survive. The true greed in this drama comes from inside Ripplewood’s towering castle of high finance
