Tamar Haspel
@TamarHaspel
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James Beard winning WaPo columnist, author of TO BOLDLY GROW, gentleman oyster farmer. General nuisance.
Cape Cod
Joined November 2009
My niece, a nurse, is hospitalized with COVID. The doctor looked at images of her lungs and asked her how long she's smoked. She's never smoked, but her lungs now look like she always has. She's 28.
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Researchers pittted ChatGPT against genuine doctors, using actual patient questions. ChatGPT was more accurate and more empathetic. By a lot. HT @adamcifu .
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Energy is expensive, and lettuce is cheap. Still kinda wonder why anyone thought this would work.
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If you're a gardening newbie, do not, under any circumstances, listen to experts. They will tell you what experts can grow. You need a crap gardener to tell you what anyone can grow. I'm here for you.
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My grandmother raised my mother singlehandedly while working full time as a journalist. My favorite thing of hers is a 2-word rejection slip from @Esquire magazine in 1934, on letterhead with founding editor Arnold Gingrich. "No dames."
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Do you really want a God who won't help people because they're in the control group?.
A new clinical study is investigating whether prayer might make a difference in the outcomes of COVID-19 patients who require intensive care. “We all believe in science, and we also believe in faith,” says the principal investigator.
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Here's a scientist who believed that time-restricted eating (eating in an 8-hour window each day) was helpful for weight loss. He did a trial, and TRE wasn't any better than the control group. He is shouting from the rooftops that his theory was wrong. Science in action.
1/ Today is Yom Kippur. Many Jewish people are fasting. I am not. But I still want to talk about fasting….
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This is straight-up the most interesting climate idea I have ever seen. Mitigate climate change! Reduce sea level rise! Create new ecosystems, energy sources, & economic opportunities!. There must be some fatal flaw but damn.
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How 'bout stopping kid menus altogether? They perpetuate the idea that kid food is a thing. Just offer half portions of everything - for kids and adults trying to eat less.
All restaurants should drop sugary drinks from the children’s menu. Philadelphia just became the 19th jurisdiction to pass a healthy kids’ meal policy. What are restaurants waiting for?
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OK, you know what I’m pretty tired of? The trope that SMALL farmers are great and LARGE farmers suck. I’m a small farmer and I’m here to tell you it’s utter nonsense. Let me tell you about the landscape of farmers in my community. And yeah it’s a thread.
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There is a myth that has to die and I am going to shout:. LOCAL FOODS ARE NOT BETTER FOR THE CLIMATE!. Transport is about 10% of a food's carbon footprint, and it's overshadowed by how efficiently the food is grown. But wait, there's more.
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For 2022 I know you resolved to have better food system conversations. I am here for you. Here are 7 widely held food ideas that are wrong. Let’s put a stake through their little hearts. (You prolly won’t agree with them all.). There’s a truth, and some ideas, at the end. 🧵.
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Kinda amazing how many people understand epidemiology AND Afghanistan.
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Almost zero obese people fifty years ago. And then the Beatles broke up!.
Almost zero obese people fifty years ago. And then CDC published its dietary guidelines, also known as SAD (standard American diet).
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@PaulRiz504 @adamcifu Oh I tried that, but ChatGPT didn't impress my editor so I guess I'll have to toil in the trenches a bit longer.
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The American diet by % of calories: . 🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞.🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞.🍞🍞🍞🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽.🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽.🌽🌽🌽🌽🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬.🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🥛.🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🐄🐄.🐄🐄🐄🐄🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔.🐖🐖🐖🐖🥔🥔🥔🍊🍊🍊.🥦🥦🥜🥜🥚🥚🧈🧈🧃🐟. Legend follows:.
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My mom, Barbara Haspel, died on Monday. Because what’s left is our collective memory, I find I want everyone to know her. I had the same impulse when my father died, a few years back. May I introduce you to my mother?
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This is a remarkable piece. 3 scientists who study forest fungal networks look at how the idea of the wood-wide-web caught on, fueled by unchecked claims, credulous reporting, and confirmation bias - including their own. @undarkmag . HT @GabrielPopkin .
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Researchers fed mice 5 different artificial sweeteners for 20 weeks. You know what happened to them (the mice, not the researchers)?. Nothing. Diet soda is totally fine you guys.
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The world is a poorer and slightly less argumentative place today. My Dad, Chuck Haspel, died over the weekend, peacefully, at home with my Mom. Since all that’s left is what we know of him, I want you all to know him. May I ask a daughter’s indulgence to introduce you?
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Since it's that time of year again, let me remind you that the biggest mistake newbie gardeners make is to listen to experts, who tell you what experts can grow. You need a crap gardener to tell you what anyone can grow. That would be me.
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The vertical farm sector is failing because of something everyone knew from the get-go:. Energy is expensive and lettuce is cheap. Boggles the mind that so much VC went into this.
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At some point, people are going to die because they believed homeopathy/keto diet/vitamin c protected them from the coronavirus and it won't be funny anymore.
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Let me summarize this excellent thread:.PEOPLE: We want natural insecticides!.PLANTS: We make linalool, which repels insects & smells nice!.INDUSTRY: Great! We already use it in La Croix (smells nice)! We'll use it in insecticides!.PEOPLE: There's insecticide in La Croix!.
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Of course it's an oversimplification! It's a fucking tweet!.
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@BatchaLaura There's this idea that it's only old people, or compromised people. It's also young, healthy people. This virus sucks, and people on the front lines are bearing the brunt of it. Get-well-soon vibes to your niece.
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Dad loved a good meal, and as he got older his wine got better and better. My family will be toasting his memory tonight, and I invite you to join us. He would have loved the idea that strangers are drinking to him just because they read about him on the internet. L’chaim, Dad.
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The dietary supplement conundrum:. Most do nothing, so don't take those. The ones that do something can be dangerous, so don't take those either. Yet we're spending $35 billion a year on this crap. I wrote about it.
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So far, 519 kids in 44 states have gotten lead poisoning from applesauce. The reason? Lead was *added* to the cinnamon to increase its weight (hence, also its price). @bmarler reports.
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Starting today, this is the scenario to guard against:. A Trump-like populist, only smarter, emerges in the next couple years, harnesses the rage, and coasts to victory in 2024.
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It is TOTALLY OK for people who grow/make/sell FOOD to want to make MONEY. That is what BUSINESSES DO.
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spare a thought for my chicken who laid this quarter-pound egg
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Fake meat in a nutshell:.- Not better for you.- Safe to eat.- Highly processed but so what.- Better for the planet when it's instead of beef but not pork.- Better for animals.People think it's healthy so it will be a health minus but a planet plus.
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Another study on diet and death! Plant-eaters live longer, but are also:.Whiter.Better educated.Femaler.Thinner.More active.Less likely to smoke.Lighter drinkers.Can you really tease out the effect of diet? .
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I know I say this all the time. You're tired of it. Me too!. But fundamental misconceptions about food & climate get repeated ALL THE TIME. If you want to eat for the planet, eat LESS BEEF and MORE LENTILS. Thanks for listening.
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We interrupt this virus news to remind you that magic health foods NEVER pan out. This time, coconut oil.
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@danablankenhorn The Netherlands relies primarily on greenhouses, not vertical farms, and that makes all the difference.
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Also, my hed for this piece was Grow Me the Money, but they nixed it.
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I tweeted this story already but I'm going to put it out there again. I find the efforts to create an American chestnut resistant to blight to be one of the most compelling stories I've ever covered. High-quality food! Fast-growing, rot-resistant lumber! It's a wonderful tree.
Terrific story about efforts to bring back the American chestnut, now an almost extinct species, might help restore Appalachian forests ruined by coal-mining: /v @TamarHaspel.
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I never thought there’d be an intersection between AGRICULTURE and FOOTBALL, but then came the BREW-HA-HA about CORN SYRUP in BEER! What fun. If you’re wondering about it, perhaps I can explain. THREAD.
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Fun fact: the nuts from 4 billion chestnut trees would meet 100% of the caloric needs of all Americans *today.*. Not advocating the all-chestnut diet. Just saying.
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4 food things that are clearly true but nobody believes:. Diet soda is fine.Our crap diet isn't because of farm subsidies.Local foods aren't better for the climate. But people REALLY hate the salad one, and also the 5th bonus truth.
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The biggest source of deforestation is beef. If you're eating, say, local grass-fed beef, you *still* have to eat less because if you cut back, that non-deforestation beef feeds more people and we reduce demand on deforestation beef. It's fungible.
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Five years ago @MikeGrunwald wrote about Cape Coral, FL, and how a major storm could drown it. Hurricane Ian is making landfall right there, right now.
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It’s Monday and I am going to THREAD about BIGGEST LITTLE FARM, the latest pricy-food-for-rich-people farm held up as an example of how we fix agriculture. Grab your COFFEE. There’s a lot to cover.
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There is a zombie idea that just won't die and I am going to kill it with math. If we put all our crop subsidies into fruit & veg, it WOULD NOT change the way Americans eat ONE IOTA. Ok, maybe ONE iota, but not TWO. Here's why, and it's MATH. A cranky 🧵.
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5, LOCAL FOODS AREN’T BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. Transport is 5-10% of a food’s climate impact (unless it goes by air). What matter is WHAT you eat, not WHERE it’s from. (I love local for other reasons). Don’t trust me, though, trust @_HannahRitchie.
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I *like* twitter. I've met smart people who know stuff I don't know, and show me stuff I wouldn't have seen. I can engage with them - ask questions, push back. And they return the favor. When I make a mistake, here's where I usually find out. I'm rooting for its success.
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Almonds are weight-loss & health darlings. Potatoes are the villains. But in this trial, where people got one or the other for 30 days, there were no significant differences in weight or biomarkers. Almonds & potatoes are both fine. HT @ethanjweiss .
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Tonight, we’re going to open a very nice bottle of wine and talk about my mother. Please join us, and toast the life of an extraordinary woman. Barbara Haspel (1939-2022)
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For year-end, I'm going to show you how we button up our oyster farm for the winter. It's for all y'all who like the farming nitty gritty. All 7 of you! It starts at dawn on Christmas day. Not always, but this year we had a tide we couldn't afford to lose. 1/
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Following the disagreement between @GeorgeMonbiot and @AllanRSavory? . Wondering whether beef really can be carbon-neutral?. I was, too. So I looked hard at the research, and the answer is no. So far. Monbiot is right here.
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Holy crap. If you put " before the https: of any url that contains a recipe, it will format *just* the recipe (no text from the page). A tip from the sky place, dunno who to credit here. PS I have some invite codes.
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Could be the best one yet.
This is Tofu. She has infiltrated the shiba ranks. Gained their trust. And will report all intel back to headcorgers. 14/10 they don’t suspect a thing
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3 things everyone wants to be good for the climate, but aren't, in order of their badness for the climate:. 1. grass-fed beef.2. organics.3. local food. They ALL have other advantages! They're not bad things, they're just bad in the GHG equation.
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So I renew my call for a CERTIFICATE OF PRUDENCE, to indicate all-purpose responsible stewardship. It comes on every size and every kind of farm, and we need to be able to recognize and reward it. (Great! Now let’s all agree on a standard!)
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Next up: an expensive car increases life expectancy!.
Want to live longer? Try going to the opera. Researchers in Britain have found that people who reported going to a museum or concert even once a year lived longer than those who didn’t.
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The grazing people make an argument that I think is wrong. They claim that ruminants co-evolved with grasslands (true!) and grazing is necessary for grassland health. I don't think that's true. This is a 🧵about why. Start here, with @GeorgeMonbiot .
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I am a fan of organic but it has a big climate problem: the near-universal, persistent 20-ish% yield penalty. That means organic requires 25% more land to grow the same amount of food as conventional methods.
Super interesting to hear how forcefully @katmerrigan raised concerns about brewing tension between organic, which is a @USDA standard, & "climate-smart," which Biden admin is interested in standardizing. "To me, organic is the original climate-smart label." . #OrganicWeekDC 1/2.
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*Where* a food is grown is not nearly as important as *what* the food is and cover your ears I am going to shout again. STAPLE CROPS, PEOPLE!. Climate winners are the cheap, storable, nutritious crops that are mechanized. GRAINS, LEGUMES, SOME TUBERS.
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Here, for posterity, is my list of strategies to check my own bias. I'm not sure how well they work, but I have changed my mind on several issues and softened toward people who disagree with me on many others. I hope you find it useful. I'm done now.
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My book - the actual, hold-in-your-hand, hardcover book - came today and it's stupidly exciting. It was over a decade in the making, and now it's an actual thing. An actual thing! A book.
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I understand anti-GMO when it's anti-Monsanto and anti-RoundupReady. It's a vote against the excesses of industrial ag. But anti-Bt eggplant and anti-Golden Rice hurts only the poor. Gene editing is a normal way to breed better crops. Get the fuck over it.
Anti-GMO activists have managed to convince the Philippines supreme court to block the release of Bt eggplant and Golden Rice. The former reduces pesticides, the latter stops kids going blind from Vit A deficiency. This is a travesty of justice and a victory for misinformation.
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So potatoes are as good as those carb gels for athletic performance but who the hell is going to stop a workout for a potato break?
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Early Golden Rice had problems (eg yield penalty). The current version has comparable yields, with bioavailable vitamin A in quantities that can prevent deficiency. It's public domain, for the very poor. But people still hate it because - sigh - GMO.
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In wood-stove season we humidify with seawater so we can make sea salt. Four gallons of water makes over a pound.
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Diet/exercise-is-better-than-Ozempic twitter is the worst twitter. OF COURSE IT'S BETTER. And every single person who goes on Ozempic has tried it. People can't do it. We know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Get off your soapbox and meet people where they are.
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This is absolutely priceless, by @davidmjohns in @TheAtlantic. Ice cream correlates with LOWER disease risk!. So, what do nutritional epidemiologists make of this finding? They dismiss it because they don't believe it. That, in a nutshell, is nut epi.
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Best advice I ever got:. I was 16, working as a cashier in a clothing store. I was super fast, accurate, and, um, let's call it ornery. I checked a woman through and she touched my arm. "If you have to do something anyway, it costs you nothing to do it nicely.". It changed me.
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Summer:. No tomatoes. No tomatoes. No tomatoes. No tomatoes. 1 tomato. 1 tomato . 3 tomatoes. 8,473,123 tomatoes
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I'm with @BrianKateman. The point of plant-based meats is to reduce enviro impact, not improve human health. If planty burgers cut fat & sodium, people won't like them and they can't accomplish that goal.
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Cow's milk is better than oat milk for Americans who need more protein. All 7 of them.
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But there is one decent indication of a farm doing things well. It prospers. And when businesses prosper, they tend to GROW. The biggest oyster farmer in my town is also the best. BIGNESS is often a sign that a farmer is good at her job. She is successful and she grows.
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Talk to me. I feel like crap because the thing that I do - write about food & nutrition - is totally useless right now. Recipe & cooking journos are useful! But how can anyone care about nutrition right now?. Do you need or want anything that people like me can help with?.
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Following the meat brouhaha? Read this JAMA piece about the infighting, weaponized conflict-of-interest, and deeply entrenched positions -- in science! It's crazy. PS - The argument isn't really about meat, it's about trust in nutritional epidemiology.
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Even though it’ll be a while til we have a good way for consumers to ID farming excellence, can we stop saying that SMALL is great and BIG is bad? Thank you and THE END.
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Immune-boosting foods are having a moment! . Too bad there aren’t any. What do we really know about diet and the immune system? What's the rationale for "immune boosting" foods? Glad you asked! . This recent paper is a good start. And this is a thread.
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I want the Biggest Little Farm to SUCCEED. But I don’t want people to get the idea that this is what ALL FARMING should look like. This isn’t really a FARM, it’s a CHARITY. And like many charities, I think it’s VERY WORTHWHILE. But it won’t feed us. OK done.
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Here's the thing about home cooking. ➡️ It usually ends up being women's work.➡️ Most people don't like to do it.➡️ It's the only chore most people can afford to offload.➡️ It takes time, skill, & resources. BUT. ➡️ It's really hard to eat well if you don't do it.
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BREAKING: Eating organic food cuts risk of POVERTY by 36%!.That's just one of the many things you'll learn about organic eaters in that new cancer study that is a LESSON in crap nutritional epidemiology! Where shall we begin . I know, DATA COLLECTION!
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@MichelleAlf @laurahelmuth It's purely a learned disgust response. We eat lobster but not cockroaches because that's what we were taught. Same reason we eat pigs but not dogs. It's not the category.
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I'm back from 10 days camping up the Blue Ridge. We started in NC, ended in Shenandoah National Park. We hiked a teeny part of the Appalachian Trail. We saw many deer, no bears. We made an apple crisp from the tree next to our campsite. It was spectacular.
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The single most environmentally friendly food you can eat is whitetail deer. Even better than oysters.
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Dear BEEF PEOPLE,.I have a favor to ask. When the subject of BEEF and GREENHOUSE GASES comes up, and somebody (like, say, me) suggests it's a problem, could I ask you not to take the YOU MORON DON'T YOU KNOW COWS SAVE THE PLANET approach?
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This is a TERRIFIC piece about the climate impact of diet, by @bradplumer @juliamoskin et al in the @nytimes. It goes into each food category, and manages to be both nuanced and clear. Hats off.
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Vitamin A deficiency blinds up to half a million children annually. But this banana, high in vitamin A, is being opposed because it's genetically modified. It is public domain, no patent fees. HT @simonmaechling .
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Diet is a DOING problem, not a KNOWING problem. Everyone agrees: EAT MORE VEG!. Yet veg consumption is down 16% from 2004. But sure let's keep arguing about carbs and fat.
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Lots of folks not supporting Ozempic because:. ➡️Doesn't address the root cause of obesity (it kinda does). ➡️Their diet is just as good (it isn't). ➡️Could have side effects (it could!). ➡️Pharma conspiracy (oy). If you care about humans, you gotta cheer for the drugs.
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@Francis_Lam OK I'm gonna be that guy. NYPD budget seems to be about 10.9 billion, NYPL is 429 million, or 1/25th. So one year of NYPL = 2 weeks of NYPD. Sorry to be that guy. Just didn't seem right to me.
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