What's Good?

Tomorrow is King Charles the something-or-other's big day, and Buckingham Palace has released the recipe for the "Coronation Quiche" which it says is "perfect for a Coronation Big Lunch." It's a very odd recipe: only two eggs and WTF, broad beans. I'm having a big meal midday tomorrow myself — I'll be carb loading for my half marathon on Sunday; I will not be eating a bean quiche in honor of a new monarch.

In other news about weird food choices that portend bad things, Kentucky QB Will Lewis boasted that he puts mayo in his coffee — so, like, "bullet coffee" but even nastier? The response from the NFL was to pass him up in the first round of the draft.

And the breakfast news just gets sillier: The Wall Street Journal says there's a battle over whether or not to refrigerate butter.  With all the bloodshed and fuckery in the world right now, I guess I’d missed that particular skirmish. For its part, The New York Times has some suggestions for a "healthy breakfast," which it seems to define as a meal coming in around 300-350 calories, which is simply not enough food. Don't start your day with diet culture. Eat!

In other food and food technology news: "GM tomatoes are coming back, but this time they’re purple, and packed with new health benefits" — or so says AgFunderNews, a publication that tracks (as the name suggests) venture funding of ag-tech.  Elsewhere in press releases disguised as news: "Philadelphia Cream Cheese Says 'Stuff It' to New York’s Outrageous Bagel Tax With the Debut of the First Ever Tax-Free Bagel." Apparently "Cheese Puffs Had A Secret First Life As Cow Feed."  I mean, they're made from corn. So yeah. Maybe the problem isn’t that we eat cheese puff; it’s that we feed cows corn? IDK. Speaking of cows, Mother Jones has a story on the  alt-right and meat-eating: "Blood, Soil, and Grass-Fed Beef."  Other good food writing: Jasmin Attia writes in Lit Hub on "Remembering the Egyptian Childhood I Never Had Through Its Culinary Traditions."  Via GQ: "Inside Superiority Burger: The Buzziest Restaurant in America."  Via NPR: "Schools ended universal free lunch. Now meal debt is soaring."

In health and health technology news: "Menopause costs American women an estimated $1.8 billion in lost working time per year," according to a study from the Mayo Clinic.  (Gotta love how this is framed a workplace issue — that is, an economic issue — as much as it is a health-related one.) The American Heart Association says that keto and paleo diets aren't "heart-healthy." Of course, so much of these diets aren’t about “health"; they’re about weight-loss. Related: I'm about halfway through reading Christy Harrison's new book The Wellness Trap, which I’ll recommend without finishing and which gets at the ways in which "wellness" is so deeply intertwined with diet culture. Speaking of which, you really must read Virginia Sole Smith's Fat Talk. I wrote a review here on Substack Notes.

In sports and sports science and fitness tech news: "Exercises like jogging or weight training may help addiction recovery," says The Washington Post — and as transformational as weightlifting and running have been for me personally, I'm a little wary of these sorts of stories, as I feel like they often re-inscribe the blame onto those with addictions as though not being "active" is the reason for depression/anxiety/drug use when it's far more complicated than that. "Black American female runners are blazing a new trail in the marathon," says The Washington Post.  Runners World, however, remains more interested in white guys running: "Mark Zuckerberg Just Ran a Surprisingly Fast 5K," it reports.

Like I said, I'm going to run a half marathon this weekend. It won't be fast; nor will my time be surprising: as it's only my second race of this distance, it'll either be a PR or my second-fasted time. It's a win either way.

Yours in struggle,
~Audrey