The United States Department of Agriculture’s new-look food pyramid, released last week to accompany a new set of Dietary Guidelines for Americans, looks more like a minimalist poster designed to be hung in a foodie’s kitchen than a piece of government policy. Underneath the invitation to “Eat Real Food,” the inverted pyramid is made up […]
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New Food Pyramid Vs. The Old: Complete Comparison Guide For 2026
New pyramid emphasizes whole, minimally processed foods over refined carbs and added sugars. Increased protein and fat intake recommended to support metabolic health, muscle mass, and nutrient absorption. Experts divided on changes, with some praising alignment to modern science and others raising concerns about saturated fat. Source: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty The new food pyramid […]
Read MoreWhat a Lobster Heist Tells Us About Government Failure
If this all sounds elaborate and surprisingly high-tech for a seafood scam, that’s because America’s freight infrastructure, for lobsters and electronics alike, less resembles an orderly city grid than tangled jungle vines. It’s decentralized, fragmented, and sprawling. Most trucking companies are tiny businesses—90 percent of carriers run fewer than 10 cabs, and a full 10 […]
Read MoreGoing boldly with pastry
I have made a lot of big decisions lately, and now that there is no turning back, it feels a little overwhelming … a sure bet is still a gamble, after all, and the stakes are so very high. I have suffered the disappointment of disillusionment, the bitter taste of soured dreams, and the sting […]
Read MoreTrump Wants You to Eat “Real Food”—But You Still Can’t Afford It
“What’s allowed him to escape, you know, Houdini-like, is the Roberts court and the fact that he’s been able to manipulate the levers of power to keep himself going,” Raskin said. “I mean, if he put, you know, a fraction of that energy into trying to actually do something for the American people, we might […]
Read MoreTrump Team Unveils New Dietary Rules—But No Plan to Lower Food Costs
“What’s allowed him to escape, you know, Houdini-like, is the Roberts court and the fact that he’s been able to manipulate the levers of power to keep himself going,” Raskin said. “I mean, if he put, you know, a fraction of that energy into trying to actually do something for the American people, we might […]
Read MoreFood to fuel growing minds
In the last week of December 2024, I bought myself a kitten calendar for the coming year. I hung it on the wall beside my treadmill and set a black pen on the lid of an old trunk nearby. This calendar would be used to track the miles until I reached my 1000-mile goal. Every […]
Read MoreChristmas cookies for a shared tradition
All around us, mothers and grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and daughters are making magic this week. We tell our bedtime stories and sing our songs in harmony and gather at the counter to roll and cut and toss our sweet memories in sugar. If we’re lucky, we have elder voices to recite their treasured recipes or […]
Read MoreStudy: High-fat diets make liver cells more likely to become cancerous
One of the biggest risk factors for developing liver cancer is a high-fat diet. A new study from MIT reveals how a fatty diet rewires liver cells and makes them more prone to becoming cancerous. The researchers found that in response to a high-fat diet, mature hepatocytes in the liver revert to an immature, stem-cell-like […]
Read MoreWhat Everyone Gets Wrong About Mamdani’s Public Grocery Store Idea
When studying food insecurity, scholars distinguish between “availability” (what is actually on the shelves) and “access” (what shoppers can afford). Particularly in American cities, it is overwhelmingly access, not availability, that drives food insecurity: There’s plenty of food on the shelves where food-insecure people shop; there’s just not always enough money in their pockets. That, […]
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Q&A: The secret sauce behind successful collegiate dining
MIT Director of Dining Andrew Mankus has been serving the Institute community since his arrival on campus in June. He brings a wealth of energy and experience — and a problem-solver’s sensibilities — to food service at MIT. Most recently, he led dining at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which has won the top […]
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Whimsy and magic
This is my last week working in the preschool. The decision to leave was not a hasty one, and was not brought on by upset or dissatisfaction, but was just the next step in my plan. I know sometimes it is necessary to make big sacrifices in the name of growth, but still, this one […]
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Post-COP30, more aggressive policies needed to cap global warming at 1.5 C
The latest United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) concluded in November without a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels and without significant progress in strengthening national pledges to reduce climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions. In aggregate, today’s climate policies remain far too unambitious to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, setting the […]
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A wealth of eggs for good health
I am now in final preparations for the arduous journey ahead. My distant goal is high above me, a shining peak atop the wispy clouds, but ahead of me now is the muddy approach and the relentless grind to the summit. I know the road is gnarled and twisted and much harder even than it […]
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PKG Center and the MIT Club of Princeton collaborate on food insecurity hackathon
On Nov. 8, the MIT Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center (MIT PKG Center) collaborated with the MIT Club of Princeton, New Jersey, and the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) to prototype tech-driven interventions to the growing challenge of food insecurity in the Trenton, New Jersey region. Twelve undergraduates traveled to Trenton for a one-day […]
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A special dish for a special request
Over the weekend we all enjoyed many living room performances from our tiny Irish dancer. She requested song after song and tapped her knuckles to her thigh in a silent countdown to the beginning of her choreography. She hopped and kicked with her brows furrowed in deep concentration, and after each was done, she bowed […]
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The Wiener's Circle giving away free hot dogs Tuesday after Bears coach Ben Johnson goes shirtless
The Wiener’s Circle is once again giving away free hot dogs Tuesday. The restaurant is making good on its promise to give away free hot dogs if Bears head coach Ben Johnson took his shirt off in celebration. And Johnson did just that on Black Friday, when the Bears beat the reigning Super Bowl champion […]
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MIT Sea Grant students explore the intersection of technology and offshore aquaculture in Norway
Norway is the world’s largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon and a top exporter of seafood, while the United States remains the largest importer of these products, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Two MIT students recently traveled to Trondheim, Norway to explore the cutting-edge technologies being developed and deployed in offshore aquaculture. Beckett […]
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The Internet Loves These “Gay Sheep.” The Real Story Is Much Darker.
This is what one of us—Gabriel, a professor of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies—has previously dubbed the “brutal, violent heteronormativity” of animal farming: It’s not that farmers are intentionally hostile to gay animals, but rather that all breeding livestock are ruled by the imperative to breed or die, reducing them to their reproductive potential. This […]
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Sweet fruit for sober fun
The summer my sister and I were seven years old, we embarked on our first big project together. We had decided to make a secret dwelling in the woods behind the home we were staying in, and we worked hard on it all summer. We found some large garden shears and cut pathways in the […]
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Mind, hand, and harvest
On a sunny, warm Sunday MIT students, staff, and faculty spread out across the fields of Hannan Healthy Foods in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Some of these volunteers pluck tomatoes from their vines in a patch a few hundred feet from the cars whizzing by on Route 117. Others squat in the shade cast by the greenhouse to […]
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Trump Reverses Some Food Tariffs, Claims to Solve Problem He Created
The National Guard’s takeover of Washington was not legal, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Thursday. Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the Pentagon had “exceeded the bounds of their authority” by ordering troops into the nation’s capital for “non-military, crime-deterrence missions” without the express permission of the city’s leadership. Donald Trump deployed 800 National Guard […]
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Chocolate cookies for a sweet treat
Every morning, I watch the playground before school. When the whistle blows, all the children come running to shoulder their backpacks and line up to wait to be called into their classrooms, and on my way past his line, I always stop by for a quick hug and kiss before he goes inside. But one […]
Read MoreTrump’s USDA Fires Worker for Talking About Importance of Food Stamps
“My sister said, ‘How is she going to get deported if she’s a Native American?’ and ‘We have proof,’” Jacobo’s sister Maria Nunez told the Arizona Mirror. “They said, ‘Well, we don’t know because we’re not immigration and we can’t answer those questions. We’re just holding her for them. So, when they pick her up […]
Read MoreTrump’s Agriculture Department Fires Employee for Talking About SNAP
“My sister said, ‘How is she going to get deported if she’s a Native American?’ and ‘We have proof,’” Jacobo’s sister Maria Nunez told the Arizona Mirror. “They said, ‘Well, we don’t know because we’re not immigration and we can’t answer those questions. We’re just holding her for them. So, when they pick her up […]
Read MoreTrump Is About to Chicken Out on His Signature Policy
“And right behind me by the way, in about two years from now, we’ll use a much bigger room because we had to turn away a lot of people,” Trump said during an executive order–signing ceremony, waving at the wall behind him. “And it’ll be right here. This will be the entrance. That’s a knockout […]
Read MoreThe Shutdown’s Over. Trump May Still Cut Food Stamps.
Trump now appears to see SNAP as a political threat. “We can reform SNAP, and I think we should,” Trump said on Monday night in a Fox News interview, even as some Democrats readied a deal with Republicans to end the shutdown. “It really puts the country in jeopardy,” he added, claiming that people leave […]
Read MoreReturning farming to city centers
A new class is giving MIT students the opportunity to examine the historical and practical considerations of urban farming while developing a real-world understanding of its value by working alongside a local farm’s community. Course 4.182 (Resilient Urbanism: Green Commons in the City) is taught in two sections by instructors in the Program in Science, Technology, […]
Read MoreKimbap when craving Korean food
I was walking down my sunny path when lightning struck the ground at my feet. A demon from my past appeared before me, and only then did I remember that I was running from him. He halted me and held out his hand and made clear that my time was up, and that it was […]
Read MoreLeavitt Goes on Wild Rant When Asked About Trump Cutting Off SNAP
“There’s a total of about 23,000 documents.… We obviously released some today, we’ll be releasing additional documents likely later today,” Garcia said. “The important thing here is that we know, and we’ve been demanding that Donald Trump and the DOJ release the full Epstein files.” Garcia continued, “In what’s been released today—which obviously is quite […]
Read MoreSZA And An Iconic Los Angeles Resturant Will Provide 1400 Meals To Local SNAP Recipients
With federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds tied up in a political tug-of-war between opposing factions of the legislative branch, US residents are picking up the slack to help feed their neighbors. Among them: superstars like SZA, who is teaming up with a fixture of her adopted home, Los Angeles, to help feed local SNAP […]
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