The Pollanization of Uhmerica

Last week we witnessed the great Poe-Lan address a Barnes and Nobles room chock-full of weirdos to promote his new novella.   It's a crowdsourced compendium of common-sense commandments that can ruin your relationship with fat friends and family as a transparent and awkward gift.  His original seven word edict (Eat Food Not Too Much Mostly Plants) was a bit too enigmatic, so he made like sixty rules of thumb that can be accompanied by smug chuckling.  While it should really be a free pamphlet or series of blog posts, his publisher would much rather add in some light sketches of real food, and charge for it.

The Next Human Genome That Should Be Sequenced

Between Craig Venter, Stephen Quake, and James Watson, the list of humans who have had their genome sequenced is short, and is focused on those who lead genome sequencing research. However, a long-term goal of genome sequencing is to identify sequence/function relationships so that we may one day achieve a Gattaca-esque dystopia -- where specific genome sequences with positive functions are built into embryonic DNA to create a race of homosapien 2.0 supersoldiers. The only real question is if the good guy will be a breakaway supersoldier, or an obsolete human castoff. At this rate, based on our current sequencing trends, our "improved" bio-successors will instead be a race of ego-maniacal, hyper-intelligent, creepy biochemists. And we ALL know, that in the future, feeble, hyper-intelligent biochemists will be slaughtered by their own cyborgs.

In Attack of In Defense of Food

We finally got around to reading Micheal Pollan's dietary blueprint, In Defense of Food. Its simple guideline of "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." rolls off the tongues of bloggers and message board responders as easy as '1st!' does from the keyboard of blog commenters. However, a cognitive dissonance and poor logic arguments exist in the later sections of the book.

5 Foody Things That Currently Are Reflective Of Our Worldview

We didn't have to start cooking for ourselves on a regular basis until we were 20. There wasn't a grocery store within walking distance, so at that point a box of Zatarain's plus sausage and onions equaled haute cuisine. We then moved up in the world to red beans from scratch and various curries. We also went through a slow cooker phase which we may return to at a future date. But Who's Now?