Even if you’ve never heard the term “hyperpalatable food”, you probably know about these kinds of foods. They’re the ones that have been designed to taste so good that you have a hard time stopping once you start eating them. They also don’t make you feel full very quickly, even though they have a lot of calories.   I began thinking about these types of foods, and my own journey with them, after listening to an episode of Trevor Noah’s podcast that featured an interview with

I recently got a surprise gift card to the meal kit service Sunbasket  from work. Since I attended a benefits meeting and filled out a survey afterward, my name got entered in a raffle drawing for the gift card, and I won! (It makes me wonder how many other people filled out the survey, but I’m not complaining.)   I’m not generally into meal kit services, but as a free experiment, I was all for it. And as with most things, the experiment had some pros and cons.   Things that

Sweets seem to abound this time of year. I should know, since I contribute to them. For my church’s holiday fair, I made peanut butter fudge, chocolate fudge, and pies, and I’ve made three kinds of cookies for holiday gifts.   But there are also holiday meals – Thanksgiving, Christmas, second Christmases, and whatever else you might celebrate – plus my church often has some kind of sweet after the service, even apart from the church fair.   When I was younger, all these sweet

A recent episode of the Stuff You Should Know podcast was about Julia Child , and that in turn prompted me to re-watch the movie Julie & Julia . (You can currently watch it on YouTube for free , though with random ad breaks.)   Between the two, I started thinking about what an amazing person Julia Child was, and how her example offers many lessons for all of us.   Be willing to try something new If you’re not that familiar with Julia Child, you may not know that before she an

For those of us who’ve struggled with eating and food issues, it’s not always easy to feel grateful for good. It can all feel quite complicated when food is sometimes a source of shame, guilt, or frustration, among other things. It’s easy to get lost in those details and forget how important food actually is.   But I want to take a moment and express how grateful I am to have food, to have access to the foods I want, and not have to worry about where my next meal is coming fr

Do you like yourself? This probably isn’t a question that comes up every day for most of us, though if you struggle with eating or body image issues, it may crop up more often.   I only started thinking about it after watching the new documentary about John Candy titled I Like Me . I still find it hard to accept that it’s been 31 years since Candy died in 1994, and from the movie, it was clear that he’s still very much in the thoughts of his friends.   I realized while watchi

Note: What I’ve written about the Day of the Dead celebration is my understanding. If I have gotten anything wrong or caused any offense, my apologies, as that is certainly not my intent.   You may have heard the phrase, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I certainly have, although I wouldn’t say it’s universally true. I suspect it depends on the man and the cooking, among many other things.   What I hadn’t heard is any similar phrase for women, so I was a bit

Now that it’s October, the weather is cooling down here in Maine, but overall, I know that the global temperature is still warming. Even...

A couple of weeks ago, I shared some takeaways from the book Candyfreak , but I didn’t get a chance to write about one of the other...

When I was growing up, I liked candy a lot. I have fond memories of going to a nearby store that sold penny candy and figuring out how I...