Eat This Newsletter 083 Has it really been 6 weeks?

Amazingly, I came off my self-imposed treadmill of daily podcasts more energised than when I started, which is just as well as I have a bit of a backlog of interesting things that I found and that I think are worth sharing.

Better get started.

1. A database of forgotten antibiotics could help medical researchers to find new ones that, I sincerely hope, won’t be frittered away on helping raise livestock intensively.
2. “What, exactly, are pickles?” If you’re in Texas, the answer is “cucumbers, and only cucumbers”. That doesn’t seem right.
3. Pearl millet bred to contain more iron improves learning and memory of Indian adolescents.
4. How to fight a giant government conspiracy to kill all the olive trees and so clear the way for industrial development: with an outdoor concert! That will show them.
5. A fabulous take on industrial foods and “authenticity” as it relates to Jewish food.
6. I’ve eaten purslane, and really enjoyed it, but around here all the purslane comes with added dog urine. That doesn’t bother Aylin Öney Tan in her paean to purslane. (Don’t bother following the links; they’re mostly pointless.)
7. Cambridge University serves up a gigantic plate of all its research on why we just can’t stop eating.
8. “[A]griculture is much better off when governments stay out of our business and let us grow our food without interference.” A New Zealand farmer tells it like it is.
9. Terrific reporting from Dan Charles at NPR, on how the FDA tracked down the source of the outbreak of E. Coli in romaine lettuce.
10. “If the means of production are in the hands of people outside our community, we are dependent on those who might not have our best interests in mind.” A black, female, American farmer speaks.
11. It’s not which whole grains you eat but how much that protects against type 2 diabetes. Danish men who ate 50g a day or more were one-third less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
12. Great to see the Botanists in the Kitchen getting their due respect.