What Is an Ingredient Listing? How Do You Read One?

This is part of a continuing series on Food Marketing Shenanigans that explores: How does it happen that when it comes to food, smart people are often not so very smart? It’s because we need a different kind of smarts to stay healthy in an unhealthy food environment, i.e., “marketing-smarts.” Ingredient Listings: The best defense … Read more

How Does This Happen to Smart People? (Part 2: Test Your Marketing Smarts)

This post is part of a continuing series on Food Marketing Shenanigans that explores: How does it happen that when it comes to food, smart people are often not so very smart? It’s because we need a different kind of smarts to stay healthy in an unhealthy food environment, i.e., “marketing-smarts.” (Find Part 1 in … Read more

Did I miss a critical piece of your support team?

A previous post talked about the importance of good eating support. The underlying point was this: If you want to be a healthy eater, you’ll get very little to no support from our food culture. But you’ll get plenty of support and even powerful encouragement to be an UN-healthy eater. Hence the need for assembling … Read more

Feel like the Lone Ranger on the healthy eating frontier?

Earlier this summer I had a classic “post-college-finals crash.” After closing a big house sale, I turned into a pile of mush, unable to do much besides stare out the window. Of course the workaholic part of me demanded that I get up and do something productive. But fortunately, I got calls from each of … Read more

The hidden health risks of a 5-Minute Kitchen: Mary in the News

In the healthy eating world, most of the conversation revolves around what’s healthy and what’s not. Great starting point, for sure, but once you figure out what’s healthy, where do you go? The kitchen of course, because we’ve already established that most ready-made foods are definitely not healthy and are often health-damaging. Real, whole foods … Read more