Drink up! Time published a report that heavy drinkers live longer than non-drinkers. Alcoholics Anonymous has always attributed this to many non-drinkers being recovering alcoholics who damage their bodies beyond repair before they stopped drinking. But a new study claims people who don't drink have a higher mortality rate than those who do, for no clear reason.
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime," is easier said than done. The Atlantic looks at how food aid to Haiti has hindered their rice industry. Over 12 years Haitian rice production has plummeted as U.S. food aid in the form of U.S.-produced rice has increased. The U.N.'s World Food Program tries to find the balance between disabling a nation with handouts and creating a situation like the Irish Potato Famine.
Discovery News sheds some light on the illegal use of songbirds in a European folk dish. An estimated 10 million songbirds are poached to make ambelopoulia, a dish where Blackcaps or European Robins are pickled or boiled. Most common in Cyprus, Malta, and Italy, the economic crisis in Greece has led to an increase in ill-gotten songbirds being sold to restaurants.
How is it possible to be a successful food writer who hasn't eaten in four years? It's possible if you're Roger Ebert, who lost his jaw to cancer but found a career in food writing with his new book, The Pot and How to Use It. Kim Severson of the New York Times joins Ebert and his wife at their Michigan vacation home, where they cook, talk about food, and the wonder of Ebert's "voluptuous food memory" that seems to improve the longer he goes without real food.
