Alice Waters (Evan Sung for The New York Times)

The first “kitchen cabinet” was President Andrew Jackson’s team of close but unofficial advisers. Now the chef Alice Waters is leading a campaign to persuade President-elect Barack Obama to create a literal kitchen cabinet.

In a letter to the president-elect, Ms. Waters — joined by Ruth Reichl, the editor of Gourmet, and the New York restaurateur Danny Meyer — urged Barack and Michelle Obama to set an example for the nation on culinary issues like the naming of a White House chef and growing organic vegetables in the White House garden. Read more…

Bill Niman, who founded a meat company known for its humane treatment of animals, is on to other ventures. (Chad Case for The New York Times)

What does a goat rancher married to a vegetarian know about meat? Ask him!

Rancher Bill Niman gained culinary fame after founding a meat company known for its humane treatment of animals. As my colleague Kim Severson reports:

Niman Ranch, which takes in annual sales of $85 million, was founded on the notion that the better an animal is treated, the better the meat will be. His beef was so good that in the early 1980s Alice Waters made it the first proper-noun meat on the menu at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. His pigs, raised humanely by 600 family farms in Iowa, provide pork for the Chipotle chain’s carnitas. Niman Ranch bacon, hot dogs and sausage fill grocery cases around the country.

Mr. Niman left the firm that carries his name after disputes with a new management team. Now, with a herd of goats and a vegetarian wife, he is redefining the rules for raising meat. “Chefs on both coasts are fast discovering his goat meat,” Ms. Severson writes.

The story of Mr. Niman’s latest venture will leave you thinking about the meat you eat. Read the full story in this week’s dining section, and then send in your questions about meat. And then check out the Diner’s Journal blog, where Mr. Niman will be answering reader questions about meat.

A generation of Americans is still trying to recover from the diet wars. Years of obsessing about fat, calories and carbs has left everyone, well … fatter.

But now, nutritionists and health researchers are seeing signs of change. The percentage of people who are on traditional diets appears to be falling, and there are growing signs of a “positive eating” trend. Positive eaters shun traditional diets and instead focus on eating well, adding foods like vegetables, nuts, berries and healthful fats onto the plate.

In today’s Dining In section of The Times, I explore the positive eating trend and talk to people like Rina Gonzalez-Echandi, a Well blog reader who opted for positive eating after reading Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food,” which highlights our unhealthy dependence on processed foods instead of “real” food. “You forget how wonderful it is to have a meal with friends and family,” Ms. Gonzalez-Echandi said.

To learn more about positive eating, read the full story here. And please, share your thoughts and experiences below.

Rachael Ray, right, cooks with a protege at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival. (Red Eye Productions)

Many parents shoo their children out of the kitchen when it’s time to prepare the family meal. But some studies show that involving kids in meal preparation makes them more likely to try new foods.

I recently spoke with Rachael Ray, the host of several popular television programs and a best-selling cookbook author, about cooking with kids. Ms. Ray regularly holds children’s cooking workshops and is the founder of Yum-o!, a nonprofit group that focuses on helping kids and families develop healthy relationships with food. Read more…

Maybe you should be eating more beets, left, or chopped cabbage. (Credit: Evan Sung for The New York Times, left

(This post was originally published on June 30, 2008, and recently appeared on The New York Times’s list of most-viewed stories for 2008.)

Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren’t. But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren’t always available at regular grocery stores. I asked Dr. Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts. Here’s his advice. Read more…

Summer fun. (David Gonzalez/The New York Times)

Why is childhood nutrition tougher in the summertime than during the rest of the year?

That’s the question I explored in my Well column this week. Although schools often are blamed for contributing to childhood nutrition problems, some data suggest kids actually gain more excess weight during the summer. Researchers speculate that unstructured play, hot weather and camp junk food all may play a role.

What happens to your child’s eating and activity habits during the summer? Read the full Well column here and post your comments below.

Choosing tomatoes at a farmers’ market in Larchmont, N.Y. (Alan Zale for The New York Times.)

The local food movement typically has been about improving the health of the planet. Buying locally means less fuel burned to transport food, which means less pollution.

But now researchers are trying to find out if eating locally farmed food is also better for your health.

A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant to study the public health impact of moving toward a local, sustainable food system. An increasingly vocal local food movement calls for consumers to try to buy and eat foods produced within 100 miles of their homes. Read more…

A lot of wasted food ends up in dumpsters. (Jonathan Bloom)

One of my favorite posts this week was a slide show depicting the many ways we waste food. Whether it’s tossing out half a corn dog at a summer concert or letting lettuce wilt in our refrigerator, we are a nation of food wasters.

To learn more about the link between health and food waste, I spoke with journalist Jonathan Bloom, whose Web site WastedFood.com tracks the numerous ways Americans waste food. To hear to our conversation, click on the “Listen to the Podcast” link below. And check out the wasted food slideshow here.

Listen to the Podcast (mp3)

Boiled, steamed, microwaved or raw? (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News)

What is the best way to cook vegetables? It’s one of the most common questions asked by readers, so I decided to explore whether boiled, steamed, microwaved or raw is better.

Unfortunately, as you’ll see in today’s Well column in Science Times, there isn’t a simple answer. How you prepare a food influences the nutrients and phytochemicals that end up on your plate. The challenge is finding the right balance between healthful preparation and delicious eating.

To read the full column, click here. And post your comments below.

The food we waste. (Jonathan Bloom)

The health community has long focused on how much Americans eat, but now the world is starting to pay attention to how much we don’t.

For a detailed look at how much food the typical family wastes each month, check out this great graphic that appeared in The Times this weekend, along with this story on food waste by my colleague Andrew Martin.

I’ve also started reading WastedFood.com, a great blog by
journalist Jonathan Bloom, who chronicles food waste and efforts to salvage food. Recent blog postings highlight the fact that 60,000 pounds of shrimp are consumed in Las Vegas each day, and how immigration policies can lead to food waste in the field because there aren’t enough workers to pick it.

To see a slide show illustrating how much edible food gets wasted every day, click here.

The most healthful meal is the one you cook at home. But for those of us skilled at the art of takeout, the idea of cooking in our kitchens is daunting. Who has time after a busy day to shop, chop, prepare and cook?

Mark Bittman. (Suzy Allman for The New York Times)

The Times’s food writer Mark Bittman always makes cooking look easy as author of the weekly Minimalist column and his new blog Bitten. He’s also the author of several cookbooks, including “How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food.” I recently spoke with Mark about the how-to’s of home cooking, his favorite ingredients and a lot about beans. Read more…

What’s your favorite? (Larry Crowe/Associated Press)

Over at the Bitten blog, food writer Mark Bittman needs your advice. He’s putting together a list of the best cookbooks ever.

Ten years ago, he wrote his own list called “Fifty Cookbooks I’d Rather Not Live Without.” A lot has happened to food and cooking in a decade, and Mark wants to update the list.

Can you help? Post your suggestions below for your favorite cookbooks of all time. Depending on how insightful or clever your post, Mark may consider tapping you to help review cookbooks for his section.

Does your purchase of organic milk conjure up images of happy cows? Do you buy brands like Nature’s Farm and Nantucket Nectars because you want to support small farms?

Well, this animated graphic will make you think twice about your organic purchases. It shows how small organic businesses (the green dots) get gobbled up by Big Food (the yellow dots) and private investment groups (the blue dots). Along the way, major food companies create their own versions of organic products (the red dots).

The shifting organic foods industry.

“These relationships aren’t very apparent,” said Philip H. Howard, assistant professor in the department of community agriculture, recreation and resource studies at Michigan State University and the creator of the graphic. “If you look at a product, a lot of times this ownership is not at all noted, even on the Web sites at times.”

Obviously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a big company buying an organic brand. But Dr. Howard notes that many consumers seek out organic foods, in part, because they don’t want to buy foods from multinational food companies.

“Often organic consumers are interested in supporting smaller scale farms and food processors,” Dr. Howard said. “In the marketing of a lot of these organic brands the firms try to evoke that image of a small pastoral farm.”

After you watch the animated graphic (just click on the picture above), check out Dr. Howard’s Web site, where he has created several interesting graphics depicting the structure of the organic food industry. One chart shows what brands have been acquired by big chains, while another shows organic brands that have been created by large companies. Additional charts show locations for organic retailers and the major organic brands that remain independent.

As a health writer, I’ve read hundreds of nutrition studies and countless books on diet and eating. And none of these has contained such useful advice as the cover of Michael Pollan’s latest book, “In Defense of Food.”

Wrapped around a head of lettuce are seven words that tell you pretty much everything you need to know about healthful eating. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Author Michael Pollan (Alia Malley)

This seemingly-simple message is surprisingly complex, because there is food, and then there are what Mr. Pollan describes as “edible food-like substances.” Mr. Pollan, who writes for The New York Times Magazine, developed something of a cult following for his best-selling book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which traced the food chain back to its original source. But while “Omnivore” left many scared to eat, “In Defense of Food” helps the reader bravely navigate the food landscape, explaining what food is, what it isn’t and how to tell the difference.

Mr. Pollan agreed to take some time this week to answer a few questions from the Well blog. Read more…

The Well blog has generated nearly 10,000 comments from readers in the 99 days since its launch this year.

Since my first post called DNA Isn’t Destiny on Sept. 24, a surprising 9,980 readers (at last count) have shared their stories, started heated debates and added much wisdom to every topic. There have been practical tips on insomnia and garlic breath, numerous tales about medical mistakes and patient travails, and inspirational and moving stories about the loss of loved ones. Readers from around the world, including Britain, France, Korea, China, India and Dubai, among other places, have dropped by to share their thoughts. And we’ve even had visits from Dracula and Santa Claus.

My favorite post of the year was A Military Doctor in Iraq, and Baby Blue, a story about a baby boy delivered by Dr. Frank Coppola, a Texas pediatric surgeon who regularly blogs about his experiences treating patients in Iraq for the United States military.

Here’s what you’ve been talking about:

10. The End of Childbirth 101? 228 readers weighed in to talk about why fewer women are taking birthing classes.

9. The Unwanted Bounce of Exercise 289 women, and a few men, shared their stories of bouncing breasts and body parts and the best jog bras to contain moving flesh.

8. A Wake-Up Call for Coffee Drinkers 313 coffee lovers brewed a heated debate about the merits of caffeine vs. decaf.

7. A High Price for Healthy Food 314 readers, many of them apparently lentil-eaters, generated a spirited discussion about whether it really costs more to eat healthfully.

6. A Doctor’s Disdain for Medical ‘Googlers’ 336 doctors and patients discussed New York surgeon Dr. Scott Haig’s contempt for a patient who “Googled” him.

5. Drug-Resistant Staph: What You Need to Know 355 germ carriers fretted about antibiotic use in humans and animals and other contributors to the superbug scare.

4. Five Easy Ways to Go Organic 461 people debated the merits of my list of strategic organic choices.

3. The Rights of Baby Boys 548 readers got personal, with stories about circumcision, the penis and their sex lives.

2. Curing Insomnia Without the Pills 599 insomniacs shared stories of sleep deprivation and tips to battle insomnia.

And the No. 1 most talked about Well blog post for 2007 was…

1. Unlocking the Benefits of Garlic 601 lovers and haters of garlic, plus a few vampires, addressed the pros and cons of the odoriferous bulb.