Do you spend your time on things that nourish you, or things that simply fill time? John Green started thinking about this for himself this fall. After watching his video, I decided to ask that about my own time. And I realized that, probably like many of you, I do some of both. But also, I did more of the “filling” than I’d like. Filling – or maybe killing – time The internet provides vast opportunities for filling time. Not that you can’t also use it to nourish yourself, bu

Regular readers will know that I’m a sci-fi fan, including Doctor Who. But you may not know that in recent years, Doctor Who does a Christmas special, and tangerines – or other citrus fruit – have played roles in more than one of them. But in the 2014 special, Last Christmas, Santa (yes, he made an appearance as well) got the bad news that no one wants the tangerine. When I saw that, I wanted to jump up, raise my hand, and say, “I want it!” And it’s true, because for me, havi

I’ve been on quite a journey with my cats and their eating, and lately it’s been more of an adventure than I’d like. But it’s also been a fascinating learning process, making me more aware of what they want and need for food – not just what I think they should have. In the beginning Way back when I first got Salem in the fall of 1999, she was around a year old and quite small, only 7 pounds. She didn’t stay that way, though. When she had free access to dry food, she took full

People often make the wrong assumptions about my eating. They look at me choosing nutrient-dense foods instead of going immediately for the fatty or sweet options, and they think I’m disciplined. But the reality is, when I’m making those kinds of food choices, it’s not because of discipline. It’s because of desire. I think what trips people us is that it’s not desire for the food as a means of instant gratification, of getting the immediate pleasure of those tasty treats (and

I’d planned to write about something else today. Then I found out last week that my friend’s mom had gone into hospice. And when I was visiting at the hospice center, I flipped through an information booklet and saw a section about food. The part that stood out for me was: “We eat to live. When a body is preparing to die, it is perfectly natural that eating should stop. This is one of the hardest concepts for a family to accept.” I remember this first-hand. When Mom was neari