John S. Allen

Chocolate milk childhood: Comfort in a cardboard container will never spoil

ECosw9 — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 22:35:56 +0000

There are perfectly good nutritional reasons for New Brunswick’s decision to ban chocolate milk in schools (as well as all other flavoured milks and juices.) With overweight and obesity rates at 30 per cent in Canadian children between ages 5 and 17, it makes sense for schools and local governments to encourage the consumption of […]

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The science-backed reasons why croissants always taste better in Paris

ECosw9 — Wed, 16 May 2018 02:55:02 +0000

Article by Kate Bratskeir I hadn’t planned to make my first visit to Paris a comprehensive croissant research trip, it just happened. The catalyst was a croissant from Boulangerie Chevalier, a bakery in St. Germain that I stopped into immediately after checking in at my hotel in the sixth arrondissement — really just because the windows […]

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An anthropologist explains why we want to eat Tide Pods

ECosw9 — Wed, 16 May 2018 02:35:32 +0000

Article by Anne Ewbank IT STARTED AS A JOKE. Tide Pods, the internet agreed, look delicious. After all, the packets of laundry soap come in bright rainbow shades. Their film is shiny, and the pods are round, almost dumpling-like. Despite their unnatural coloring and eerie perfection, they look good enough to eat. In 2015, the Onion […]

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The reason we like the tidy feelings of home is evolutionary

ECosw9 — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 04:28:36 +0000

Is your house tidier than it used to be? If it is, then you have probably read Marie Kondo’s international bestselling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011). Kondo’s book is ostensibly a manual for home improvement. She suggests that our home environment should not be a repository for limitless amounts of stuff, but […]

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The big home ownership lie: Greed, fear and how the big banks exploited a human need

ECosw9 — Fri, 27 May 2016 03:45:04 +0000

The home ownership meme can be very powerful Most of us are familiar with the concept of the “internet meme.” Someone does something, say “planking” on a fast-food counter, and uploads a video of him- or herself doing this to a public or social media site. Other people see the video, emulate the activity, and […]

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Growing a “Theory of Food”

ECosw9 — Fri, 20 May 2016 05:11:56 +0000

What we eat as children shapes how we think about food as adults In my book The Omnivorous Mind (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012) and in other writings, I have argued that we humans each have a “theory of food” that guides how, how much, and what we eat. This theory of food is analogous to […]

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