I think Phil Plait might have a new book coming out. He never mentions it, so I might be mistaken.
His first book, Bad Astronomy, was engaging and informative. I have every reason to suspect that his next book will be even more awesome. I just wish he’d let us know what it’s called, or even give us some kind of hint at what it’s about.
Come on, Phil. Stop being so shy.
The calculus of nutrition in America has changed rapidly in the last generation or two. Food is available more cheaply, and in larger quantities, than ever before in human history. Modern farming techniques and shipping methods have made it a snap to put an obnoxiously red tomato on a sandwich in the midst of a New England winter. The scarcity of poverty has largely been replaced by hoards of high-calorie, low-nutrient processed foods.
And the food we have access to is more appealing to our senses. Chemical additives and mad-scientist-grade technologies enable the processed food industry to enhance and combine flavors into concoctions that would doubtless induce some kind of flavorific shock in our great-grandparents who, we assume, subsisted exclusively on oatmeal and boiled cabbage. These cackling flavor wizards can make a jellybean that tastes like popcorn, while still tasting like candy. This is both Horrible and Wrong, as well as delicious with a capital “binge.”
In the face of all this cheap, flavorful food, America’s collective waistband is expanding as rapidly as its trade deficit. Any television news organization that ever sent a camera crew out onto the street to film people from the neck down will tell you that we’re suffering from an epidemic of obesity. By now, they’ve all got fancy graphics and theme music to go with it.
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