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"When discussing what to eat and how much, people often come to the conclusion "Everything in moderation." This is too vague for me. What exactly is "everything"? Every kind of Drake's Cake and candy bar? There's a lot I could justify with this "directive." Twinkies in moderation? Pop-Tarts in moderation? Ice cream in moderation? I could make an entire "everything in moderation" diet in which I eat nothing but crap.\n\nOf course, this is not what "everything in moderation" means. It means lumping these foods into one category (junk food, or refined carbohydrates, or sugar, or desserts, or processed foods) and taking the whole category in moderation. But what exactly is "moderation"? What, pray tell, would a "moderate" amount of chocolate be? An ounce a day, a week, or only on special occasions? And what would a moderate amount of trans fat be? Aren't some things better avoided altogether, or is this what people mean when they say, "Everything in moderation. Even moderation"?\n\nAnd where did this "Everything in moderation" come from? "

"Miller eloquently encapsulates the combinatorial nature of creativity and the constant borrowing and repurposing that takes place as we build upon what came before and recombine existing bits of knowledge and ideas to create what we call "our" ideas. And your way, is it really your way? […] What, moreover, can you call your own? The house you live in, the food you swallow, the clothes you wear - you neither built the house nor raised the food nor made the clothes. […] The same goes for your ideas. You moved into them ready-made."

"They and others had been searching for answers and grappling with their implications since Sunday, when Weight Watchers began unveiling its first major overhaul to its cultlike points system, prompting the 750,000 members who attend weekly meetings across the United States - and some one million online adherents - to rethink how they shop, cook and eat. The new plan, company officials say, is based on scientific findings about how the body processes different foods. The biggest change: All fruits and most vegetables are point-free (or free of PointsPlus, as the new program is called). Processed foods, meanwhile, generally have higher point values, which roughly translates to: should be eaten less. "

"How do we tell the difference between real threats and bogus ones? (This is important for many reasons; for one, chasing fake threats takes away resources from real issues.) But it's tough to do, since evolution has given us a brain with what scientists call a "negativity bias" that makes it prone to feeling threatened. This bias developed because the ancient mammals, primates, and early humans that were all mellow and fearless did not notice the shadow overhead or slither nearby that CHOMP! killed them. The ones that survived to pass on their genes were nervous and cranky, and we are their great-grandchildren, sitting atop the food chain, armed with nuclear weapons. Your brain is continually looking for bad news. As soon as it finds some, it fixates on it with tunnel vision, fast-tracks it into memory storage, and then reactivates it at the least hint of anything even vaguely similar. But good news gets a kind of neural shrug: "uh, whatever." In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones. All this makes human beings super-sensitive to apparent threats. Basically, in evolution, there are two kinds of mistakes: (1) You think there is a tiger in the bushes but there isn't one, and (2) You think the coast is clear, no tiger in the bushes, but there really is one about to pounce. These mistakes have very different consequences. The first one will make you anxious, but the second one will kill you. That's why Mother Nature wants you to make the first mistake a thousand times over in order to avoid making the second mistake even once. This hard-wired tendency toward fear affects individuals, groups (from couples to multinational corporations), and nations. It makes them overestimate threats, underestimate opportunities, and underestimate resources. "

"These keep me going where other alcoholic drinks always drag me down," says Terry McAfee, a 20-something recent graduate of Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Calif. He's just plunked down $12 for four 23 ounce cans of Four Loko - the combination alcohol-caffeine drink whose manufacturer, Phusion Projects, LLC was one of four companies to receive warning letters this week from the US Food and Drug Administration. Although health-care professionals and addiction specialists have applauded the FDA, some groups agree with consumers such as Mr. McAfee that this is the latest example of a "nanny state" government pushing itself too far on the public."

"By Monday, Four Loko, the alcohol-and-caffeine-laced energy drink, is scheduled to be removed from store shelves nationwide, following a ruling last month by the Food and Drug Administration that the safety of such beverages is unproven and that they should no longer be manufactured or sold. During the resulting media coverage, surprisingly little attention was focused on a corollary topic. What about nonalcoholic energy drinks, which will remain on sale? Are they safe? Effective? Who should be drinking them? Who shouldn't? With excellent timing, a number of new scientific studies and reviews have just been published that address those and related questions about energy drinks, particularly for athletes. Their findings and conclusions are thought-provoking."

"It was once a staple of public school cafeterias that blended the indulgent and the nutritious, satisfying parents and children both. But chocolate milk is uncontroversial no more. Dozens of districts have demanded reformulations. Others have banned it outright. At the center of these battles are complex public health calculations: Is it better to remove sugary chocolate flavorings at the risk that many students will skip milk altogether, missing out on crucial calcium and Vitamin D? Or should schools instead make tweaks - less fat, different sweeteners, fewer calories - that might salvage the benefits while minimizing the downside?"