n. 1. The act of engaging or the state of being engaged. 2. Betrothal. 3. Something that serves to engage; a pledge. 4. A promise or agreement to be at a particular place at a particular time. 5. a. Employment,… Read More ›
Nutrition and Health 
The resurgence of ‘Home Grown’
Growing fruit and vegetables at home is hardly a new phenomenon. But over the past couple of years there has been a real surge in popularity of home grown produce. It’s been reported that in response to the Global Financial… Read More ›
Challenging nutrition paradigms
Many of you will have heard of the nutrition professor, Mark Haub from Kansas State University who’s currently undertaking an experiment on himself to see if he can lose weight while eating an energy restricted diet of junk food. Last… Read More ›
No wonder people are confused about nutrition
A friend once said to me that the opening phrase of a media article most feared by nutritionists is: “a new study now proves that ….”. She’s right. The interface between science and journalistic endeavour is an area of constant… Read More ›
I’m sceptical….what are you?
New Scientist ran an interesting series of articles about denial in May this year. It got me thinking that scepticism vs denialism is another way of describing a theme often addressed in this blog. I consider myself a sceptic –… Read More ›
All hail the cheese roll
They’re celebrating and exploring the science of the cheese roll in Dunedin this month. I love cheese rolls, and reading about this makes me want to rush home and cook up a batch of these warming winter treats. Winter food… Read More ›
Navigating the food and nutrition communications highway
Navigating the communications highway can easily lead you into a spaghetti junction. Perhaps never more so than in the area of food and nutrition communications. Central to successful navigation is weighing up the evidence, listening, and understanding the views of… Read More ›
Has the world already reached Peak Health? If so, who’s to blame?
The concept of peak oil has spread into the health sector, with public health professionals now talking about peak health in the same vein. This draws important parallels between our health as humans and the health of our planet –… Read More ›
Go First Lady!
Well done Michelle Obama. I commend her “Let’s Move” public awareness campaign to help stem the tide of childhood obesity in the US, launched on February 9th and outlined in the NZ Herald. A critical success factor is that this… Read More ›
White Hat Scientists
In olden day cowboy movies the do-gooder cowboy heros wore white hats. Recently the term “white hat bias” was coined to describe bias in scientific research on obesity (the subject of much nutrition research at present) which leads to “distortion… Read More ›