For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week the shocking truth about “humanely raised” chicken, the 1-minute workout, and a surprising new benefit of fiber.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

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Links of the week

• The not-so-humane way ‘humanely raised’ chickens are being raised <<Intuitively it is hard to imagine a company as large as Perdue finding a way to humanely raise the quantity of animals it produces. Now one of their farmers has come forward and shown us what “humanely raised” really means for the megacompany. This is why I don’t touch industrial meat. (Washington Post)
• A Road to Mental Health Through the Kitchen <<Stressed? Depressed? Maybe it’s time to start cooking. (Wall Street Journal)
• Got a Minute? Let’s Work Out <<No time to workout? The New York Times calls bullshit.
• Why I shop for produce at ethnic markets <<I’ve been encouraging people to shop at ethnic markets for years for exactly these reasons: better selection, better prices. (Washington Post)
• Organic-Farming Boom Stretches Certification System <<This is troublesome, and I hope solid solutions are found and implemented soon. (Wall Street Journal)
• The color of your coffee mug can change the way your coffee tastes <<Never underestimate the power of your environment to shape your “preferences.” (Washington Post)
• Antioxidant capacity of orange juice is multiplied tenfold <<I’ve never actually heard a plausible reason that fiber is supposedly so good for you. This is certainly an intriguing hypothesis. (ScienceDaily)
• BPA in Cans and Plastic Bottles Linked to Quick Rise in Blood Pressure <<An interesting finding in a well-designed study. The plastic stuff is starting to get really scary. (NY Times)
• A Lack of Bacteria Can Make You Overweight <<“Farmers have been giving antibiotics to livestock and poultry since the 1950s because it makes them grow fatter.” Yep. (Wall Street Journal)
• Americans are not lovin’ McDonald’s—and haven’t been for years <<When I started writing about food back in 2007, I would only dream of a headline like this. LOLLERSKATES. (Washington Post)

What inspired you this week?