"The world record attempt all started in 19th August 2001 when I decided I wanted to break the world record for the greatest number of plant varieties in a salad with plants grown in our garden." Their garden is in Norway.

Good overview. "1. To soak, sour or sprout grains, legumes, nuts, seeds and beans; 2. To only consume traditionally fermented soy products and with iodine-rich companion foods; 3. To eat healthy fats, including monounsaturated and saturated fats; 4. To learn how to culture vegetables and make naturally fermented probiotic beverages; 5. To find a source of raw, enzyme-rich protein and eat it every day."

"If pigs are fed on residues and waste, and cattle on straw, stovers and grass from fallows and rangelands – food for which humans don't compete – meat becomes a very efficient means of food production. Even though it is tilted by the profligate use of grain in rich countries, the global average conversion ratio of useful plant food to useful meat is not the 5:1 or 10:1 cited by almost everyone, but less than 2:1. If we stopped feeding edible grain to animals, we could still produce around half the current global meat supply with no loss to human nutrition: in fact it's a significant net gain. It's the second half – the stuffing of animals with grain to boost meat and milk consumption, mostly in the rich world – which reduces the total food supply. Cut this portion out and you would create an increase in available food which could support 1.3 billion people."

"I know a lot of vegetarians and some vegans too. I don’t know any of the stereotyped proselytizing kind, probably because I’m not in my 20s any more and neither, for the most part, are my veg friends. In my experience, I see more omnivores picking fights with vegs than the other way around...Maybe surprisingly, someone from PETA had the most reasonable and pragmatic take on the topic that I’ve seen: Seven people giving up meat one day a week does as much for animal welfare as one person going completely vegetarian. Switching half your meat consumption out of the factory production system does more for animal welfare than not doing so. And so on. Unheroic incrementalism. It will still manage to piss people off."

"I tend to think of food in terms of the food system, which is the whole enchillada from farm to fork. What fascinated me when studying food from this perspective was that the greatest use of food system energy occurs at the household level. Therefore, I have spent a bit of time considering how to lower energy consumption in food storage and preparation.

If I wasn't taking a food system approach and was only interested in lowering energy the consumption at household level I might suggest buying highly processed foods that can be reheated in the microwave, or precooked grains such as parboiled rice and instant oats. But with a wide-boundary perspective I am starting with the premise that the household is buying foods that are primarily local, seasonal and in raw or whole forms." The strategies he comes up with remind me a lot of Diet For a Small Planet: vegetarian diet, combining proteins, sprouting seeds, etc.

"Why are environmental groups and even politicians willing to tell Americans to drive smaller cars or take the bus to work but unwilling to tell them to eat less meat? If you live in a recently built suburb you must drive most places whether you wish to or not. Walking or public transit simply isn't an option. But you could stop buying ground beef and start buying veggie burgers tomorrow, saving yourself some money and sparing yourself some cholesterol in the process. And yet no one, other than a small cadre of lonely fringe activists like Hartglass, devotes much energy to making the connection."

"There’s no demonstration of the wrongness of eating flesh that hasn’t been countered by equally powerful arguments for its rightness, and different justifications have a way of both supporting and interfering with one another. Broadly speaking, though, for many centuries the debate centered on three questions, each of which was reflected in Newton’s dietary choices and the objections raised to them: there was the religious question, concerning the implications of Scripture for human alimentation; there were medical questions about the effect of eating meat on human health and character; and there was a philosophical debate about the proper relationship between man and other animals. There was no distinct category you could call moral, because all of them were, as they remain, intensely moral."

"Mark Bittman did it again. He published "101 Fast Recipes for Inspired Picnics" in last Wednesday's New York Times. So of course, I had to do it again, and publish a vegan version."

Tons of fascinating articles on the science, practice, history, nutrition, and psychology of mainly "fringe" diets (vegan, raw food, fruitarian)

...is the kitchen of a lapsed vegetarian.