Do you crave fatty foods or salty snacks? Does the thought of chocolate make you swoon? Or do youas you know you shoulddelight in fruits and vegetables? Whatever your food preferences, you are likely aware that theyre not strictly a matter of willpower. For better or worse, your diet is shaped by environmental, cultural, and social factorsand your genetics.

Although people with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia have been evaluated for genes that influence dietary behaviors, healthy people have often been overlooked. Consequently, little is known about the natural variations in the behavior-related genes that might affect eating behavior among people who simply hope to stick to healthier diets.

Working to fill in this gap is an international team of scientists that analyzed the genetics of 818 men and women of European ancestry, evaluating single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within 38 loci (1359 SNPs) selected on the basis of previous associations with several behavioral and psychological traits (that is, stress, addiction, depression, impulsivity, novelty-seeking, aberrant eating) from genome genotype data. In addition, the scientists gathered information about their diet using a questionnaire.

Ultimately, the scientists found that the genes they studied did play a significant role in a person's food choices and dietary habits.

One team member, Silvia Berciano, a predoctoral fellow at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, presented the new findings during the Experimental Biology 2017 meeting, which is still being held in Chicago. The findings also appeared in an article (Behavior Related Genes, Dietary Preferences and Anthropometric Traits) that is in the April issue of the FASEB Journal.

Significant associations were observed for the FTO locus with vegetable and total fiber intake; the CREB1 and GABRA2 loci were associated with salt intake; and the SLC6A2 with total fat and monounsaturated fatty acids, wrote the articles authors. Finally, chocolate intake was associated with variation at the OXTR locus.

The authors noted that many nominally significant associations were observed between genetic variability at the selected loci and the consumption of specific foods and nutrients, but they emphasized that the most significant association with anthropometric traits was found with certain forms of the oxytocin receptor gene. This gene was not only linked with higher chocolate intake, but also greater waist circumference.

Our data indicate that genes implicated in behavioral and psychological traits drive a significant component of an individuals food preferences and dietary habits, the authors continued. This information will contribute to a better understanding of eating behavior and facilitate the implementation of personalized dietary advice that should result in better compliance and more successful prevention and therapy of chronic disorders.

The researchers plan to perform similar investigations in other groups of people with different characteristics and ethnicities to better understand the applicability and potential impact of these findings. They also want to investigate whether the identified genetic variants associated with food intake are linked to increased risks for disease or health problems.

"Most people have a hard time modifying their dietary habits, even if they know it is in their best interest," said Berciano. "This is because our food preferences and ability to work toward goals or follow plans affect what we eat and our ability to stick with diet changes. Ours is the first study describing how brain genes affect food intake and dietary preferences in a group of healthy people."

"The knowledge gained through our study, Berciano asserted, will pave the way to better understanding of eating behavior and facilitate the design of personalized dietary advice that will be more amenable to the individual, resulting in better compliance and more successful outcomes."

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Food Choices Swayed by 'Behavior' Genes - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Verily

4 Ways You're Eating Your Way Toward an Anti-Inflammatory Diet Verily "Increasing these nutrients in the diet, specifically omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), vitamin E, polyphenols, prebiotics, and probiotics, help defend against chronic inflammation." In her work, she finds, more and more ...

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4 Ways You're Eating Your Way Toward an Anti-Inflammatory Diet - Verily

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., April 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Agropur has received the Breakthrough Award for Dairy Ingredient Innovation for its development of highly pure glycomacropeptide (GMP). The first annual honor, presented in Chicago on April 24 at the American Dairy Products Institute's annual meeting, is awarded in cooperation with Dairy Foods magazine.

GMP is a casein-derived protein fraction produced during the cheesemaking process. In 2016, Agropur introduced high purity whey protein isolate with more than 95% of the total protein in GMP form. No similar ingredient commercially available reaches the same purity.

"To our knowledge, only one other dairy ingredient company manufactures a whey protein concentrate with 60% GMP," said Anand Rao, vice president of research and development, Agropur Ingredients. "GMP extends our protein's reach to pharmaceutical applications."

GMP is an ideal dietary tool for people with phenylketonuria, a birth defect that inhibits the body from digesting the amino acid phenylalanine. People with phenylketonuria have to follow diets that restrict phenylalanine ingestion, leading to difficulty consuming enough protein. Agropur GMP's high purity results in just 1-2 milligrams of phenylalanine per gram of protein, making it highly functional for phenylketonuria-friendly products. So, phenylketonuria patients can safely follow a nutritious, high-protein diet.

"We are incredibly honored to receive this award from Dairy Foods and the American Dairy Products Institute," said Doug Simon, president of Agropur U.S. Operations. "As a global leader in protein isolation, Agropur is well-suited to formulate more innovative products like GMP for years to come."

Agropur's highly pure GMP also has applications in the dental industry. GMP's properties protect against tooth decay and plaque formation, so it's an ideal ingredient to be used in dental hygiene products like toothpaste and mouthwash.

Agropur started producing GMP at its award-winning Jerome, Idaho facility in December. The product is already being used in commercial formulations.

ABOUT AGROPURAgropur Cooperative is a North American dairy industry leader founded in 1938. With sales of nearly $6.0 billion in 2016, the Cooperative is a source of pride to its 3,345 members and 8,000 employees. Agropur processes more than 13 billion pounds of milk per year at its 39 plants across North America and boasts an impressive roster of brands and products. Agropur Inc. is a subsidiary of Agropur Cooperative.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agropurs-glycomacropeptide-wins-breakthrough-award-for-dairy-ingredient-innovation-300444548.html

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Agropur's Glycomacropeptide Wins Breakthrough Award for Dairy Ingredient Innovation - Yahoo Finance

Whole Cuisine Getting Runners Ready For The 10K One Meal At A Time Vancouver Sun As the clinics are helping me learn to run 10k safely, the food being provided is changing my lifestyle. Now I am aware of different food options and I'm armed with new knowledge on nutrition regarding what our body needs for success. I'll be the first ...

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Whole Cuisine Getting Runners Ready For The 10K One Meal At A Time - Vancouver Sun

Idaho Statesman

Finding reliable online self-help programs Idaho Statesman There are tens of thousands of online self-help programs and businesses with apps and websites that tout their DIY approach to managing everything from addiction and depression to chronic pain and insomnia. A 2015 study found that around 15,000 ...

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Finding reliable online self-help programs - Idaho Statesman

Massey University creative writing graduate Sacha Joneswas a principal dancer in the Sydney City Ballet after surviving a teenage diet of cake and laxatives on Saturdays. Her memoir takes a tragi-comic look back at her early dance career.

Kelly Barden, a fledgling young dancer, was lithe and lovely and very much built for ballet, as I was not. But her technique was weak and undeveloped where mine was strong. When she was awarded first prize in the Stuyvesant, Australias premier ballet competition, against every prediction of the teachers and other dancers at the Opera House on the night, and I was awarded runner-up for the second time, I thought it was the end of my world, and in a way it was. It was the end of my childhood, and the beginning of the end of my dance career, though I didnt know that then. I planned to go to London to win the top ballet competition there, the Adeline Gene. That would show them.

The company returned from Tasmania a few days later and I make myself go in to meet them in the studio. They are buzzing with the success of the tour; the best ever, they all agreed, which doesnt exactly help. But it does help to have the studio alive again. You dont look too good, someone tells me, and I shrug. I dont feel too good. The SeptemberNovember edition of Dance Australia comes out with a full-page article and photo of Kelly, still wearing that stolen golden smile, her arms laden with her winners bounty of flowers, trophy and $4000 cheque. There are a few words dedicated to the runner-up.

Another production of The Nutcracker to be performed for schools by day and the general public by night is planned for late November, early December, to finish a few days before I leave. I am going to London despite the Stuyvesant loss and because of it, in a way.

I have enough saved in my little blue bank book for a one-way ticket and after the Stuyvesant I have no more doubts about leaving, possibly never to return.

Between rehearsals for The Nutcracker, for which I am dancing the part of Clara, I must learn the two Gene variations from a video and manual. This is a gruelling process undertaken awkwardly with Mrs Ps help in the smaller studio next to the one in which Hassan runs rehearsals of the second act, which doesnt involve Clara much. The piano accompaniment for the Gene dances is clunky and uninspiring next to Tchaikovskys passionate Nutcracker score, and the steps are so technical that I cant muster much enthusiasm for them.

The truth of the matter is thatIm not as fit as I was for the Stuyvesant. In just a few weeks I have lost condition, returning to abusing laxatives on an ever more regular basis, and extending my binges beyond a few spoonfuls of pie. On my way home from the studio one evening, the custard cannoli in the window of the Italian bakery at Central Station that I have successfully resisted for approximately 700 days finally wins out and I dont stop there.

That night the laxatives dont work, possibly because my body is getting used to them, or perhaps laxatives dont work on custard cannoli. Whatever the case, waking up with all those cloying calories weighing me down the next morning is more depressing than losing the Stuyvesant almost. I starve myself the next day, not even eating breakfast, and again the following day, then break out with another binge the day after that.

And so the vicious cycle begins and continues until one day Mrs P, taking me through my Gene variations, tells me I have put on weight and need to lose it before the Gene. She leads me to the mirror and says: Here, pinching the fat on my upper arm, and here, pinching my upper inner thigh, which is not the first time she has touched that part of me ballet teachers have a free pass to the whole body but it is the first time she has done it for the purpose of finding fat. I have finally failed the pinch test.

Sacha Jones as a teenage ballerina, Sydney,1982 (Image: Supplied)

Im a miserable wreck. I charge headlong into a carrot-and- TAB-only diet that I intend to stay on for the remaining weeks till I leave for London. It lasts precisely three long days; not quite long enough for Mrs P to notice any improvement or say anything if she does, but long enough that Im so ravenous I could eat an entire Italian bakery and almost do. My battalion of laxatives comes out in full force that night and this time they do work. By the time I get into the studio the next morning, I am light-headed and dizzy from a very draining night. And its not over yet. After another visit to the studio bathrooms I collapse unconscious on the floor fortunately just beyond the toilet cubicle.

When I come to, I am being carried through the streets of Sydney in Daryns arms. Later on I find out that he insisted on being the one to carry me to the hospital, although Hassan, a much bigger man, offered.

I spent that day after collapsing in the museum bathrooms in intensive care at Sydney Hospital being tested for drugs and diseases, questioned by a psychiatrist (I admitted nothing), given a sedative and finally diagnosed with anorexia in its early stages. I was deeply ashamed of those early stages. I had always taken inspiration from Karen Carpenters battle with anorexia, even if she had just died of the disease earlier in the year, but early stages anorexia feels like being runner-up in the Stuyvesant.

But the show must go on. I was out of intensive care and onto the stage dancing the role of Clara quicker than you could say Nutcracker. Three days after my collapse, we opened at the Capitol Theatre (the Regent being prepared for demolition by that stage), with the dress rehearsal the very next day.

Three weeks later I am on the plane to London. And it is this goal that saves me, I think, as well as my brief stay in intensive care, which was a bit of a wake-up call. After that, I put away the laxatives and got back to my much more balanced breakfast-only, no-cannoli diet. By the end of those three weeks I was down to 41kilograms, roughly my goal weight, and felt more or less recovered. I could lose those last two kilos in London.

More cautious parents may well have wanted to keep their slightly unstable, recently hospitalised teen at home for a while longer before sending her off to the other side of the world unsupervised. So it was just as well that my parents were not the cautious type. In fact, in those three weeks Mum and Dad had taken themselves off to their favourite guesthouse in Bowral where Mum, according to her diary, sank a 20-foot putt, and Dad bought her an eternity ring to celebrate twenty years of marriage while waiting to hear back from Oxford University Press who had sent him some encouraging letters on his book.

As soon as I take my seat on the flight to London, I plug in The Man from Snowy River (in my ears) for a bit of premature nostalgia as the plane clears that vast brown continent of fake forests and improbable fruits, heading north over the bright, blushing blue sea. A box of Colon Care is tucked safely in the hold just in case. They might not have laxatives in Narnia.

From The Grass Was Always Browner, a memoir by Sacha Jones (Finch Publishing,$32.99),available at Unity Books. Sacha will compete tonight (Monday) at the Classic Comedy Club in Auckland for a place in the semi-finals of the Raw Quest. All the best Sacha!

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The Monday Extract: The ballerina who was hospitalised with anorexia - The Spinoff

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a serious and growing problem. Previously linked with obesity, a new study also connects it to maternal obesity - meaning that what your mother ate during pregnancy may affect your future liver health.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterized by a buildup of fat within the cells of the liver. Although having fat in the liver is normal, if there is an excessive amount, it can lead to liver scarring and cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis describes a process during which liver cells are gradually replaced by scar tissue, hindering the liver's capacity to work effectively.

NAFLD is estimated to affect 20 to 30 percent of people in the Western world, and this level appears to be on the rise.

Individuals with type 2 diabetes and morbid obesity are among the worst affected; in these groups, the rates of NAFLD are 70 and 90 percent, respectively.

Although some of the risk factors are understood, it is not always clear why one person develops NAFLD while another, similar person, does not. Because of the rising prevalence of NAFLD, a great deal of research is currently under way that attempts to generate an understanding of the pathways behind the condition.

The latest research comes from a team headed up by Dr. Michael Thompson, Ph.D., a pediatric endocrinology fellow at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio. The results are presented today at the Experimental Biology 2017 meeting, held in Chicago, IL.

Using a mouse model, the research explores the effect, if any, of a maternal high-fat diet on the offspring's liver health.

Dr. Thompson explains the reasons for his decision to embark on the current project: "Complications of obesity are a significant cost burden for the medical system, especially given the prevalence of obesity. Understanding how maternal exposures impact obesity-related disease such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease will allow us to develop lower-cost preventative therapies to utilize up front rather than awaiting complications down the road."

Once the data had been analyzed, they found that exposure to a high-fat diet during development produced changes in the liver that persisted through to adulthood. These changes remained even if the offspring were fed a low-fat diet after birth.

If this effect is confirmed in humans, it would mean that someone of a healthy weight could still be at risk for NAFLD if their mother had been obese during pregnancy.

When the team looked further into the data, they found that levels of bile acid and the genes involved in its regulation were altered in the offspring of obese mothers. This suggests that the offspring might have cholestasis, a condition in which the normal flow of bile is interrupted.

"If human offspring from obese mothers have a similar risk for developing fibrosis as we see in mice, we may be able to predict who is going to develop more serious disease.

Knowing who is most at risk for more serious disease will guide us on which patients should be treated more aggressively. Furthermore, understanding the biological mechanisms involved in this increased risk could lead to preventative therapies."

Dr. Michael Thompson

The results will need to be confirmed, but they open the door to a raft of new questions. Thompson and his team are now planning research to further investigate the risk of disease progression. Using the same mouse model, they are also designing studies that will examine preventative therapies able to be administered during pregnancy or shortly after birth.

Due to the rising rates of NAFLD, research in this vein is likely to continue at breakneck pace. Preventing or slowing this condition could have huge health benefits for the population at large.

Learn how eating meat may increase the risk of developing NAFLD.

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Your mother's diet may influence your liver's health - Medical News Today

You may have come across some pretty alarming takes on diet soda going into this past weekend. "Daily dose of diet soda tied to triple risk of deadly stroke," blared Fox News . Outlets like the Washington Post and CNN repeated the assertion that drinking artificially sweetened beverages may increase the risk that your brain just maybe headed for a blood clot or serious mental deterioration because you like to drink Diet Coke. Don't believe the hype; the situation probably isn't nearly as dire as that.

Some of the reports about this "deadly diet soda" study have been more nuanced than others. But there's a common theme among a lot of themthey don't outline some of its most crucial and relevant caveats until way past the headline. And if they did, the titles would be pretty boring. Like, "Study determines minor observational link (but no direct cause-and-effect) between certain people who drink artificial sugar beverages, but it has a small sample size that doesn't include minorities or account for a whole bunch of other critical factors."

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That's not exactly as sexy as claiming that a Diet Coke a day will bring Alzheimer's in its wake, or triple the chances of a stroke. But science, fortunately (or unfortunately if you're trying to grab clicks at the expense of good information), isn't meant to be sexy. It's meant to test hypotheses and express facts. And when the results of scientific experiments are presented without context, they lead to misleading, panicky headlines like the ones that dominated the Internet on Friday.

Physician Aaron Carroll, who writes for one of the most clear-eyed, if wonky, health care websites out therethe Incidental Economist and has a delightfully no-BS, data-driven column on the New York Times' Upshot site, highlights several reasons why you should take this new sugar study with a grain of salt.

Did the participants differ by race or ethnicity? I have no idea. I do know, however, that the authors write about the absence of ethnic minorities, which limits the generalizability of our findings to populations of non-European decent. Was that in the coverage you read?

Did they differ by socioeconomic status? No idea. Did they abuse drugs? Work or retire? Live alone or with someone? Have a family history of disease? No idea.

Did they acknowledge that different artificial sweeteners are different molecules with likely different effects or implications? No.

Were there multiple comparisons, meaning some results might be due to chance? Yep. Did they rely on self-report, which might mean recall bias comes into play? Yep.

Was this an observational study? Of course.

Was all of that in the coverage you read?

Carroll's explanation is a lot more in-depth than that, digging into nerdy-but-important factors like the actual models the study's authors used, the limitations they openly admitted to, and information we simply don't know about their analysis.

But this does reflect a common theme in mainstream media science reporting. The drive to report the most provocative (in many cases, concerning) headlines obscure the incremental, nuanced, and decidedly not -reductive nature of good science. If you were to rely on flashy media headlines alone, you might think that everything causes cancer or prevents it !

None of this is to say that sugar alternatives don't come with health risks; they very well might. But limited, observational studies about public health trends can only take you so far down the path to real knowledge. So don't feel pressured to freak out about that diet drink because the Internet told you to.

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Stop Freaking Out About That Study Linking Diet Soda to Alzheimer's and Strokes - Fortune

Fish has long been Paul Greenbergs bread and butter. But last year, the fisherman, journalist, and author of Four Fish and American Catch took his relationship to seafood to a new level. While researching his next book, The Omega Principle, Greenberg spent a year eating fish multiple times a day, every day with the goal of raising his bodys level of omega-3 fatty acids. Meanwhile, he also traveled to Peru to visit the worlds largest wild fishery, to Norway to see the birthplace of modern aquaculture, and to Alaska, the last thriving wild salmon habitat in the world.

Greenbergs journey is also at the center of an episode of FRONTLINE called The Fish on My Plate, which airs Tuesday, April 25 on PBS. We talked to him about the film, his experimental diet, and the future of the fish on our plates.

You ate seafood every day for a year while filming this segment. Lets start with that. Why did you do it?

I have marginally high blood pressure, marginally bad cholesterol, and my triglycerides are on the high side, so I was hoping that those things would get addressed. Theres this thing that happens where you see around the corner of 45 and catch a glimpse of 50 in the middle distance and you just dont feel as sharp. And all the things that fish and omega-3s are supposed to do seem to relate to all the problems that you have when you realize that you truly are middle-aged. So, I was hoping to have a better, a less burdened, middle age than I might have had.

We wont spoil it for the audience, but it didnt quite work out how you planned. It has been six months since you stopped; what is your relationship to eating seafood now?

Well, Ive also been evaluating it for next my book and Ive come to the conclusion that a diet where pescatarianism is a large element is probably a good thing for the planet and a good thing for a persons health. That doesnt mean fish every day, but something more like the pescatarian Mediterraneanso it has all the qualities of the Mediterranean diet, but your primary protein more often than not would be fish.

But the other thing that you have to take into consideration is mercury and other pollutants. If you think about not wanting to push the gas pedal on mercury above a certain level, and attuned your fish consumption accordingly, you could strike that balance between pollutants and nutrition and probably get to a point where youd have a pretty healthy diet.

Id always been led to believe that if youre eating fish that is low on the food chain, and focusing on wild salmonwhich also eat relatively low on the food chainyoud avoid mercury. But it just turns out that there is trace mercury in almost every piece of seafood. As [the biologist] said in the film, its like death by a thousand cuts. And so you really do need to be conscious of it.

This filmand the forthcoming bookis much more health-focused than your other work. Do you want to talk about your decision to go that route?

My audience keeps expanding, which is great, but every time the audience expands I have to take a step back and find the right altitude at which to fly to explain these things. And you know to some degree the omega-3 in the film is the MacGuffin. Its important, but its also a way to talk about all these other things.

Omega-3 is also the Forrest Gump molecule. In the film, Forrest Gump shows up at these key moments throughout history and youre not quite sure what he does, but you know its important. And if you look at it from a health perspective, omega-3 exactly reflects our obsessions of the moment. In the 70s and 80s everyone was afraid of dropping dead of a heart attack, so Omega-3s were immediately plugged into cardiology.

They used to think it was connected with lowering cholesterol, but it seems like the evidence is it doesnt lower cholesterol. But that was our obsession and now that we have angioplasty and statins people arent as worried about heart attacks anymore. Now theyre worried about losing their minds and becoming demented. So, where has the Forrest Gump molecule wandered now? Its into the brain. So, thats the altitude that Ive chosen to take in my next book. And at the same time, it frees me up to talk about food systems which is to me the really important stuffmuch more important than my own heart and brain.

Lets talk about changing perceptions about fish farming. Do you find it ironic that while a small percentage of the population has questioned many of the methods behind aquaculture in the last decade, the actual numbers of pounds of farmed fish that were consuming has grown enormously?

Yes, its like [the moment in] Casablanca where Louie comes in and raids the casino and says, Im shocked, shocked to see gambling going on in this establishment! Then the croupier goes up to Louie and says, Your winnings, sir? and he says, Thank you very much. Thats kind of the way we feel about farmed fish.

But the fact is that fish farming is getting better. Theres one very basic metric that has really changed, and thats the amount of fish eaten by farmed fish. The fish-in-fish-out ratio has really come down. The possibilities of alternative feed really have risen. And I actually think in about five years things like algae and soldier flies will be a really major part of the aquaculture portfolio. And well start to see that argument [against farmed fish] getting dropped.

In 2007 and 2008, when I was doing the bulk of the research for Four Fish, the aquaculture industry was in a certain place. But it has changed. You had Ted Danson screaming at the top of his lungs and the celebrity on the Oceana board, saying, Nobody should be farmed fish. Now you have people like Leo DiCaprio who came out and strongly urge that everybody eat more farmed fish.

Any piece of seafoodbe it farmed or wildis going to have a smaller carbon footprint than any piece of land food meat, so its hard to argue against it in a much bigger sense.

A lot of folks are pointing to open-ocean or offshore aquaculture as a promising solution. What are your thoughts about that?

I certainly have thoughts about it; I dont know if Ive made a decision about it. On a basic level, putting aquaculture pens in the open ocean with more current and more water [for circulating the waste] certainly seems to make more sense. A few years ago I wrote an article for Conservation Magazine about open-ocean aquaculture and I kind of stressed a somewhat positive vision of it. I ran it by an ocean conservationist and he was just livid that I would even suggest this idea because he argued that if you had tons and tons of sea pens out there, youd essentially change the chemistry of the ocean and it could have large consequences. And I suppose thats true but its also a hypothesis.

If you could irrefutably prove that any addition of aquaculture will result in an offset of wild fish capture then aquaculture wins. But so far we havent been able to prove that. And I dont know that we ever will. So, that to me is the larger question. If we were to add a bunch of open-ocean pens and introduce these additional nitrates and so forth into the offshore environment but it meant taking away thousands of miles of long lines that [inadvertently] catch turtles and other aquatic life, maybe it would be okay to have a few ocean pens. But that hasnt happened yet.

Do you want to talk about the good actorslikeKvary Fiskeoppdrett,the fish farm you visited in the Arctic Circle?

As far as I could see, if youre going to do net pen aquaculture, that is about as good as it could get. For one thing, they have much lower stocking densities than the industrial guys further to the south [of Norway]. They were using lump suckers to eat the sea lice off of the salmon. They create this artificial kelp bed that the lump suckers cling to and the salmon swim in and they get kind of cleaned off like in a car wash. The feed they use has a low fish ratio and its all coming from waste from other fisheries.

So, you know, theyve pushed the model as far as it could go [sustainability-wise]. On the other hand, there are people who say theres a limit to how far that model can go. And thats what drove us to go see Bren Smithsmussel and oyster operation in Connecticut because that is truly different and truly less impactful than salmon farms. But do you want to eat mussels as often as you eat salmon?

Yeah, Ill be really curious to see if Bren can grow his operation in the current market.

Were flesh eaters. As Americans, weve really gotten used to wanting a big chunk of meat-like flesh on our plate and its going to be very hard to change that.

One of my favorite parts of the film was the scene in the fish market, where you talked about what you buy and why. Youre the person I think a lot of us should be going to the fish market with.

Thanks. Maybe Ill start a little side business after my next book is done.

Yeah, you could probably give thousand-dollar tours to women from the Upper East Side. Anything else you want to add about the film?

If folks want to learn more they should read my books, Four Fish and American Catch. Films take you places that you couldnt normally go and show you images that you wouldnt see, but to really ponder things, I still believe in the power of the written word.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Paul Greenberg's All-Fish Diet - Civil Eats