The Lost Lectures
LOST LECTURE ON THE VIRTUES OF THE TABLE. The best short introduction to my book is this short video.
ReadTag: Food
As consumers, do we have double standards?
People still shop as though ethics were some kind of optional extra, relevant only to a few premium purchases. Consumers tend to operate according to a double-standard: they are outraged when companies do not ensure they source ethically but they do not often make much effort to source ethically themselves.
ReadIs it time to rethink our dietary advice?
It turns out that the more we understand how nutrition works and how complicated it is, the simpler the dietary advice we need to follow. In theory, any number of changes might make your diet healthier, but in practice diet is too complicated for us to be able to micromanage it. Too much is unknown about how the elements of diet interact for us to be able to change the variables to achieve the result we desire.
ReadStop, think, chew
Rather than looking for secular surrogates, we should look for other ways to cultivate the virtues that ritual promotes. Such practices need to be at least as embedded in our daily routines as prayers are for believers.
ReadHow allotments lost the plot
The arrival of the BBC’s The Big Allotment Challenge shows that grow-your-own is a pursuit worthy of the same attention as baking, dating and home improvement. As an allotment holder myself, albeit very much the head gardener’s lackey, I’m ambivalent about this. Allotments are wonderful things but the rise, fall, and rise again in their popularity tells a story about social change that is both encouraging and dispiriting…
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