Blog

A list of all the articles published on this site

  • The matter of human numbers: less is more

    Colin Tudge argues that we need to bring far wider dimensions – ecological, evolutionary, and indeed cosmic – into discussions on human population. Not to do so is “a dereliction of duty” As I argued in my blog on human population on November 10:   “… because the issues are so emotive, the subject has become…

  • Slow Cooking

    Slow Cooking is the method called for in the deep mid-winter. There are more benefits, and applications than you might imagine.

  • Beans by many other names: Part one

    The derek cooper award This month, out of the blue and marvellously, Ruth and I became the proud recipients of one of the BBC Food Programme’s Food and Farming Awards; to wit, “the Derek Cooper Award for Outstanding Achievement”. It is a great honour and a great fillip. Derek was a fine writer and a…

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  • Beans by many other names: Part two: the recipes

    I ended each chapter with a few recipes plagiarised from various sources but modified in the light of what was then the orthodox nutritional theory. The emphasis was on low-fat, under the influence of the American physiologist / nutritionist Ancel Keys (1904-2004). Keys’s general idea – that we should follow a basically Mediterranean diet –…

  • Soil is a community. It is a conversation

    Rabbi Jeffery Newman reflects on the harmony of life, as is manifest in science, in religion, and is visible in a clod of earth Civilisation rests on six inches of soil. The film of that name — Six Inches of Soil (Colin Ramsay, 2024) has made this truth newly visible to a wide audience, but…

  • English Walnuts

    Growing walnuts is a long-term undertaking but the taste is a revelation.

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  • The matter of human numbers: the problem that dare not speak its name

    No issue is more divisive than that of human population. Anyone who ventures to discuss it in public risks abuse, or worse, from all sides. But, says Colin Tudge, no one should doubt that human numbers matter. We cannot afford simply to duck the issue.  Sir David Attenborough tells us that the human population has…

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  • To Everything There Is A Season – Part 2

    Continuing suggestions for a Natural History GCSE from a cook’s perspective.

  • To Everything There Is A Season

    Suggestions for GCSE Natural History from a cook’s perspective.

  • Why we need the Renaissance Party even though there seem to be more than enough political parties already

    An Apologia by Colin Tudge Many thanks to everyone who commented on my blog of September 11 suggesting that we need a new political party – “The Renaissance Party”, aka the RP. By far the majority were favourable though there were objections of various kinds to which I would like very briefly to respond. Thus: …