This is the first weekend reading roundup of 2014! I’ve been catching up on work this weekend, which also means catching up on my reading. I came across some recipes that have inspired me to step into the new year with my culinary creativity in tow, and some articles that have made me think. I hope you’ll enjoy them, too.

Begin your year with something hearty and nourishing. Melissa (the Vegenista) has created a roasted winter vegetable and jeweled grain bowl that hits the spot.

Chilly winter mornings call for rewarding breakfasts. Try Vaishali’s tantalizing stuffed french toast.

If the French toast doesn’t warm you up, then surely Becca’s beautiful smoky coconut and butternut squash soup will. Yum.

Rebecca’s crazy delicious raw pad Thai looks…crazy delicious!

And since we can’t forget dessert, there’s Lindsay and Taylor’s fruity dark chocolate bark. Oh yes.

Reads

1. A charming article on new year’s resolutions of yore, which were notably focused more on the effort to be virtuous than to lose weight or go on a juice cleanse.

2. Harper’s extends its review to all of 2013, presenting the year’s events in less than 2,000 words.

3. A really interesting round up of new research into vitamins, via Discover. I share it with the following caveat:

The research seems to apply most readily to the use of multivitamins, or specific vitamins that were taken in the hopes of curing a global ailment (as opposed to careful, targeted vitamin therapy). In other words, there are certain contexts in which a particular vitamin is necessary (I’m thinking, for instance, of people with celiac developing Vitamin D deficiency, or the necessity of vegans supplementing B-12). Multivitamins may not be necessary, and taking a B-vitamin may not cure cancer, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to take a vitamin if a specific situation warrants it. Using vitamins in place of healthy habits is foolhardy, and vitamins aren’t universally benign, but taking a strict, purist anti-vitamin stance can be problematic, too.

4. This article is not recent, but in reading through some of Abby Ellin’s past work on EDs, I found her NY Times article on binge eating among men. An important expose for two reasons: first, because binge eating itself is sometimes stigmatized, and that needs to change; second, because EDs are often unfairly classified as womens’ illnesses, and nothing could be farther from the truth. Though men don’t always comment on green recovery posts as readily as women do, a great number of men reach out to me every week and every month to discuss disordered eating. They often mention that they don’t feel that many resources are in place for them. Articles like these, I hope, will help to create more consciousness.

5. Martin Rowe’s fantastic essay on the work of Jo-Anne McArthur, via Our Hen House. It is an excerpt from his book, The Polar Bear in the Zoo: A Speculation (Lantern Books, 2013). McArthur is a photojournalist who takes pictures of animals in captivity (zoos, aquariums, labs). Rowe describes her incredible ability to underscore the animals’ suffering while also preserving their dignity. He also helps to capture her haunting message, writing,

…for all our fascination with the beauty of our fellow creatures and our concern for their being endangered—indeed, in spite of our earnest hopes that zoos may protect these animals and ensure their continued survival—these creatures are, like the billions of creatures not in zoos, still living at our whim. McArthur’s journalism demonstrates that for all their ubiquity and our desire to see them, the animals are also perversely invisible to us and that our wish to control their behavior can also take the form of neglect. Several photos illustrate how, in spite of the allure of the animals’ pelts, coloring, and that elusive beauty, we often forget or overlook those whose lives we compulsively meddle with. They’re thrown away as trash, left neglected by the side of the road, packed into bags or trucks, or discarded in the stockyard: surplus supply to a demand that seems never to be exhausted.

Finally: if you haven’t yet read Heather’s green recovery story from yesterday, do. It’s full of empathy, passion, and hope.

Happy Sunday, all.

xo