Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Adelle Davis, 1904-1974
Look Back in Hunger. Jo Brand, autobiography 2009
Anything is good if it’s made of chocolate. Jo Brand
Sonya Thomas, aged 36 of Alexandra, Virginia, only joined the International Federation of Competitive Eating in 2003, but the 105-lb (48kg) rookie has already set records. These include eating 8.4 lb (3.8 kg) of baked beans in under 3 minutes, 167 chicken wings in 32 minutes, 11 lb (5 kg) of cheesecake in 9 minutes, 65 eggs in under 7 minutes, 38 lobsters in 12 minutes, and 432 oysters in 10 minutes. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006
We think that the smaller digestive system in Homo erectus that it was able to evolve because of the shift in diet. Freed-up energy that could then be used to power a larger brain. Professor Peter Wheeler, Liverpool John Moores University
The latest change in our food is of course so-called Recombinant DNA technology, or GMOs. Only half a generation has passed since they were introduced. Professor Susan Bardocz, Alternative View II conference lecture
Nutritive differences in intensively grown vegetables (1940-1991) UK government data: potatoes -47% copper, -45% iron; carrots -75% magnesium; broccoli -75% calcium. Canada (1955-1999) potato: lost all vitamin A, -57% vitamin C; oranges -76% vitamin A. ibid.
The Way We Eat Now – The Food Scare: 1992 UK salmonella in eggs; listeria hysteria; BSE; 1996 E-Coli outbreak – 100,000 official cases of food poisoning; 2008 GM Food! ibid.
What has happened lately is we went gone from farming to pharming. ibid.
Changes in our food: flavorous -75%; vitamin C 50-60%; omega-3 -50%; methyl groups -95%; carotinoids -40%; phospholipids -50% since 1990; selenium -50% since 1960 UK; presbiotic fibre -50% since 1960 France; steols -66% since 1960 SA. Dr Paul Clayton, 2007
My mother is scraping a piece of burned toast out of the kitchen window, a crease of annoyance across her forehead. This is not an occasional occurrence, a once-in-a-while hiccup in a busy mother’s day. My mother burns the toast as surely as the sun rises each morning. Nigel Slater, Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger p1
America has now become the fattest nation in the world. Congratulations. Nearly one hundred million Americans are today either overweight or obese. That’s more than 60% of all US adults. Morgan Spurlock, Supersize Me, 2004
People were suing the golden arches for selling them food most of us know isn’t good for you to begin with. Yet each day one in four Americans visits a fast food restaurant. ibid.
They’re everywhere ... even hospitals. ibid.
What would happen if I ate nothing but McDonald’s for thirty days straight? Would I suddenly be on the fast track to becoming an obese American? Would it be unreasonably dangerous? Let’s find out. I’m ready. Supersize me. ibid.
There are more Micky D’s in Manhattan than anywhere else in the world. This tiny little island is less than 13 miles long by 2 miles wide – 22.4 square miles – and packed into that area are 83 McDonald’s, nearly 4 per square mile. ibid.
22 minutes later: I’m dying. ibid.
The toxic environment is constant access to cheap fat-laden foods. ibid.
McDonald’s stated in their own defence that ‘it is a matter of common knowledge that any processing that its foods undergo serve to make them more harmful than unprocessed foods’. ibid.
Only half the McDonald’s in Manhattan had the nutrition info posted on the wall. ibid.
Houston, Texas, the fattest city in America. ibid.
Apparently, we are not only the fattest nation in the world, but we were quickly becoming the stupidest. ibid.
Even the salads contain sugar. ibid.
In only thirty days of eating nothing but McDonald’s I gained twenty-four and a half pounds, my liver turned to fat, and my cholesterol shot up sixty-five points. ibid.
Some people even eat it every day ... Don Gorske has eaten 19,852 Big Macs. ibid.
The last decade has seen an explosion of interest in English food. It’s become world class ... It’s also steeped in history. Calf’s Head and Coffee: The Golden Age of English Food, BBC 2013
An epicurean epic that begins in Roman Britain. ibid.
The first threshing engine was invented in 1786 by a Scotsman Andrew Michael. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations s4e1: Europe: Bread, Beer and Salt, Discovery 2006
Now in the 1880s they ditched the grindstones and water-mills and they replaced them with rollers and a turbine. ibid.
Without mass produced beer, bread and salt workers would have starved and the industrial revolution would have ground to a halt. ibid.
More than half of America is on a diet. We are programmed to eat and it’s tough to fight millions of years of evolution. Now we’re overweight ... A haven for fad diets and their slick sexy ads are everywhere ... Quick and easy answers on how to lose weight. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s1e11: Eat This, Showtime 2003
The so-called Hollywood Celebrity Diet! ibid.
Almost twenty-five thousand people a day die of hunger. ibid.
These Greenpeace dudes want us to believe that GE crops will ruin other crops and harm any animal or person that eats those foods. These extremists love to use bullshit propaganda ... It’s pretty easy to protest when you’re not hungry. ibid.
Norman Borlaug ... The greatest person that ever lived? At a time when doomsayers were hopping around saying that people were going to starve, Norman was working ... When he won the Noble Prize in 1970 they said he had saved a billion people ... Norman is the greatest human being. ibid.
All food is the product of technology ... Every food has been changed through selective breeding or grafting ... Why is anyone fighting food advance? ibid.
Elvis knew a thing about a thing or two. He knew food: he liked to eat deep fried banana and bacon sandwiches. But Elvis kicked ass: they’re great. Penn & Teller: Bullshit! s5e10: Anger Management
OK, some people will starve but those who don’t starve are going to be way healthy. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s7e6: Organic Food
Bailey has found no evidence that organic foods have any more nutrients than regular foods. ibid.
Which three billion people do you think should starve to death? ibid.
If you think you’re keeping your organic money in your local organic community you’re organically deluded. ibid.
71% of these organic shoppers preferred the non-organic tomatoes over the organic ones; 80% guessed wrong over which were the organic apples. ibid.
There’s no such thing as pesticide-free farming. Hudson Institute spokesman, interview ibid.
The biggest problem for organic is that it takes so much more land to produce a given amount of food. ibid.
Organic: there is a political cache to it. ibid.
Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.
These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat,
The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois.
And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat.
Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.
And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase.
These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat:
And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.
Of all clean birds ye shall eat.
But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,
And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind,