Start with AllRecipe.com's Carrot Cake III. Substitute apple sauce for all of the oil (one-to-one). Add a cup of raisins. Consider using pumpkin pie spice instead of just cinnamon. And ditch the frosting. Good stuff, but way too many calories to be able eat more than a thumb-sized portion. Cut your cake into 16 sections. Dollop on a half-serving of neufchâtel cheese, and throw into the microwave for a few seconds to help spread. Top off with a teaspoon of sugar to get a more icing-like experience. Result: a cake nearly as good as the "real thing" with fewer than half the calories. Oh, and we used half brown sugar, which adds a few calories.

Nutritional result: 290 calories, 6.6 g fat, 4.9 g protein, 42 g carbs. Compare that to the original recipe, with smaller servings (only 19): 583 calories, 35.6 g fat, 5.2 g protein, and 63.9 g carbs.

The Way We Live Now: Our Decrepit Food Factories: This article is not terribly long, but it is incredibly cogent in its explanation of what sustainability really means and why we should be concerned with it. As a first order response, please consider purchasing only antibiotic-free meat. It is now pretty widely available in normal grocery stores, and I don't believe it has much of a premium over other meat. The FDA needs to stop this practice — I have sent them letters requesting that, via the Union of Concerned Scientists. In the meantime, we must reduce the impact whatever way we can as individual consumers.

A NY Times columnist seems to get Tex Mex. Tex Mex, te queremos. Usted esta cubierto de queso y salsas de los chiles. Esta malo, esta bueno. Tengo mucho hambre cuando pienso en usted. Es la diedad de las comidas.

And now a brilliant series of words from a guest on tonight's blog (mi esposa):

in the beginning, the people were hungry
for they had waited long in the hot sun for a table
and then there was brought to the table cold water
upon which to slake their thirst
and the people saw that this was good and were happy.

Since its the 4th of July, it seems appropriate to talk about one of America's favorite ways of celebrating its independence from King George: barbecuing. I didn't actually do that today, in fact I didn't even take the day off. I worked at home so that I can have next Monday off — July 9^th is the commemoration of the Martyrdom of the Báb in 1850.

I recall one day in the spring of 2002, shopping at the H.E.B. grocery store on Riverside Dr. in Austin, TX, being struck by the horrible nutritional value on display on the conveyor belt before me. The shopping list seemed to consist primarily of donuts, chips, soda, and a few other items of questionable healthiness (white bread, milk, beef, no fruit, ...). Surreptitiously, I looked up at the woman buying these things, probably to feed her family (I don't remember thinking she seemed particularly overweight herself). I thought to myself, "what mother would feed these things to her child?"

Way back in 1994 I recognized that I was essentially already a Bahá'í, so sometime in the waning days of November I officially joined the Bahá'í community. The next spring I fasted for the first time — Bahá'ís over the age of 15 are expected to fast from sunup to sundown for 19 days (3/2 - 3/20) every year. Thus today is the second day of my tenth Fast. And I really miss my coffee.