Culinate Main Feed

Michael Pollan's latest — On microbiomes and food politics

2013-05-21T17:24:58Z

Michael Pollan’s latest New York Times Magazine feature, "Some of My Best Friends Are Germs," documents the current science on the complicated relationship between humans and bacteria.

This science isn’t totally new — Michael Specter wrote about what scientists call "the human microbiome" last fall in the New Yorker, and Moises Velasquez-Manoff recently explored bacteria's role in weight loss for Mother Jones — but Pollan emphasizes the connections between our bacteria and our diets:

Few of the scientists I interviewed had much doubt that the Western diet was altering our gut microbiome in troubling ways. Some . . . are concerned about the antimicrobials we’re ingesting with our meals; others with the sterility of processed food. Most agreed that the lack of fiber in the Western diet was deleterious to the microbiome, and still others voiced concerns about the additives in processed foods, few of which have ever been studied for their specific effects on the microbiota.

Culinate Main Feed

Michael Pollan's latest — On microbiomes and food politics

What to eat after a book tour? — Try Spaghetti with Green Chile and Cheese

Eco-packaging — Plastics replacers

Bowls around town — Check it out — literally

Shellfish season — Learning the ways of the water

Rebuilding the Foodshed — How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems

Edible parks — Free fruit grows across the land

Daphne Miller — The healer

Bivalves 101 — Clams, mussels, oysters, and scallops

The pregnancy and booze battles — Conflicting advice

GM salmon, still waiting — Will the FDA approve it this spring?

The Chefs Collaborative Cookbook — Local, Sustainable, Delicious Recipes from America's Great Chefs

Swine nation — Feral pigs run amok

Cooking with wine — Tips from a pro

Cooking classes for all — There's a class out there for you

Corn, corn, everywhere — It ain't going away

La Cosa Nostra — The great Sicilian-Neapolitan kitchen rivalry

Paper over pixels — Why cookbooks are (sometimes) better

Leeks — Beyond a supporting role

Low-carbon recipes — Cleaner food for Earth Day

Seed diversity — Preservationists in action

Cooking phases — Change in our kitchens

Smelly cells — The entire body can respond to odors

Bacterial news flashes — From NPR's food blog, The Salt

Using the whole vegetable — Leaf love

Breads of India — Flatbreads from around the continent

Hard times — Figuring out what to eat is so tricky

Money woes — The farm bill and the sequester

The beef-stroganoff affair — Yvonne Brill's obituary goes viral

Stock answers — Liquid balm

The secrecy police — Why is it so hard to find out what's really going on with our food?

Broken bees — The worst year yet for honey bees

In the boarding house — The original working-class diet

The do-gooders — Grocery stores and food forests

Food & drink, again — The NY Times speeds up its annual ritual

Kickstarting your food project — Using the Web to raise dough

Can you cook a food you dislike? — Squeamishness aside

Seafood fraud — Oceana's studies reveal mislabeling nationwide

The skinny on skim milk — It might not be so great for kids after all

No foolin' — Maple-tree technology

Debra Eschmeyer — The Food Corps co-founder

GMO labels in the grocery store — Whole Foods calls for a revolution

Family favorites — A cook grows up

The pig protectors — A animal-welfare campaign

The American way of barbecue — Regional variations on slow-cooked meat

Food-waste apps — How to get the most from your food

The scope of poverty — It's not just about soda

Getting smarter about vegetables — 'Vegetable Literacy'