Two perspectives on those foodstuffs entering your piehole.

They're slightly different perspectives on eating, but quite complementary. Both are from the New York Times. First, Mark Bittman:

A new column from Mark Bittman explores moderate, conscious eating: a diet higher in plants and lower in animal products and hyperprocessed foods.

The moderate, conscious eater — the flexitarian — knows where the goal lies: a diet that’s higher in plants and lower in both animal products and hyperprocessed foods, the stuff that makes up something like three-quarters of what’s sold in supermarkets. That’s the kind of cooking and eating I’ll be exploring in this monthly column.

Then, Frank Bruni:

Invasive species run roughshod over the rest of nature. That’s where our incisors and bicuspids come in.

For your personal health, you should probably eat more vegetables. But for the future of civilization as we know it?

More pork. Feral hogs, to be exact.

OWS: "Its roots are in the populist, suffragist, labor, civil rights, women’s, anti-war, environmental and even food movements."

Just the first and last paragraphs reprinted here; pick your way through the hypocritically and hyper-critically outraged neighborhood conservatives to read the remainder.

Finally Making Sense on Wall Street, by Mark Bittman (NY Times Opinionator blog)

Countercultures and alternative systems can be nurturing, educational, illuminating, inspiring — and these are not small things — but they do not bring about fundamental change. Food co-ops, for example, make a difference, but they won’t much alter the way Big Food operates. Historically, the route to fixing broken systems goes through struggle, confrontation and even revolution ...

... The occupation of Wall Street may end with the first extended cold rain. But the renewed understanding that collective struggle is a key component in meaningful change — inspired by things as diverse as the Tea Party and a Tunisian fruit vendor — could not be more important. A movement that questions everything — from food justice to economic justice — is a fine start, and if Occupy Wall Street can push the Democrats as the Tea Party has pushed the Republicans … well, hooray.