appetizers

Here’s a taste of what’s cooking in the nutrition world:

It may be environmentally principled to bring
your own reusable bag to the grocery store, but new research from Duke University and Harvard Business School has shown it can catalyze a paradox of virtuous-indulgent shopping. Specifically, the study found that supplying one’s own tote for groceries seemed to license shoppers to increase purchases of both organic items and junk foods.

When peanut butter met chocolate, we knew
it was love, but what sort of weird mash-up pairs meat-loving paleo tribalists with vegans? Usher in peganism, which borrows the best of both clans for a more sustainable eating plan. Pegans
adopt a 75% plant-forward diet and
round out the balance with animal
protein and high-quality fats. Please,
no dairy, soy or sugar allowed.

We all recognize food deserts
as the stretches of urban real estate
devoid of grocery stores and rife with empty-caloried gas station snack bars
and such, but are you familiar with the closest food swamp? This newly coined term describes areas that teem with unhealthy fast-food outlets and other below-par options, but have few to no fresh grocery stores.

From the files of the most absurd food concoctions ever: introducing Pizza Hut’s new hot-dog-stuffed-crust pizza. Feast your senses on this bizarre aberration of a pepperoni pie, which sports a corona of hot-dog bites circling the perimeter and is
served with a side of French’s mustard for dipping (available in traditional or pretzel crust).

A poll of 1,000 men in the U.K. showed just how attached guys can be to that slab of meat on their plate. Among the list of top 25 things they’d rather do than become veggie? Give up chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, television, the pub and, yes, even sex. Some said they’d rather
get a wax or have their mother-in-law move in than quit eating meat.