Writing

A bead of sweat ran down Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s face as he sat before the Senate Finance Committee. The personification of a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, Kennedy occupies a unique place in the discourse. He has served as a public servant, corporate mercenary, brain-dead megaphone, and personal hypocrisy. And he’s shouldered it all with an entitlement reserved only for the highest echelons of the American elite.

Ever since the first human put meat over a flame, food has been processed. The use of fire, air, and salt to prepare and cook food, along with the development of preservation methods like fermentation, has enabled the evolution, adaptation, and growth of our species.

Around 1972, Carlos Monteiro and his fellow medical residents ventured to Vale do Ribeira, an underdeveloped region in southern Brazil. The area suffered from severe undernutrition and lacked established primary healthcare. So, Monteiro and his peers went to study the conditions and educate the locals.

My first love came in a yellow plastic tray. It was the summer of 2006. I was seven years old, visiting my dad in Orlando after my parents’ divorce. He’d never had to pack lunches before, so when camp rolled around, he did what a lot of single, overworked parents did. He bought us Lunchables.

Inside you is an ecosystem - an entire world populated by trillions of microscopic organisms. Most live in your large intestine, nestled along the mucus-lined walls or drifting in the digestive current. This community of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites makes up what scientists call the gut microbiome, and it plays a far bigger role in your mental health than you might think.

In 1989, British researcher David Strahan noticed a troubling trend. Rates of hay fever had skyrocketed over the preceding thirty years, leading him to dub it a “post-industrial revolution epidemic.” Asthma and eczema were climbing too. So, he set out to find an explanation.