FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: Plastics are more dangerous than you think, farmers are in crisis, and mindful people feel less pain

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week plastics are more dangerous than you think, farmers are in crisis, and mindful people feel less pain.

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Links of the week

• The problem with all the plastic that’s leaching into your food – Excellent (and terrifying) recap of the dangers of plastics, especially for children and male reproduction. This should be common knowledge, please share with people you love. (Vox)
• BPA replacements in plastics cause reproductive problems in lab mice – p.s. BPA-free plastic isn’t any better. “The researchers showed that, if it were possible to eliminate bisphenol contaminants completely, the effects would still persist for about three generations.” (ScienceDaily)
• Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us? – This is so sad and so important. Our current food system is not sustainable, not just to our health and the planet’s, but to the farmers as well. (Civil Eats)
• Exercise, Eat Well, Help Others: Altruism’s Surprisingly Strong Health Impact – Things to think about while trying to improve your health. (Scientific American)
• The Myths of Mindfulness – I love all the scientific references in this article. (Greater Good Magazine)
• Starting up or heading back to a fitness routine? Here are tips to prevent overdoing it. – It’s really easy to injure yourself by jumping into an exercise routine that’s too intense for your fitness level. Not to mention it’s too hard and likely to lead you to early burnout. Be reasonable, start slow. (Washington Post)
• Why your desk job is so damn exhausting – Some hypotheses on where our motivation goes when we’re doing hard mental work (I would include dieting in this category). (Vox)
• ‘Mindful people’ feel less pain; MRI imaging pinpoints supporting brain activity – I also learned from this article about a validated short mindfulness survey you can take to gauge your baseline mindfulness levels. Cool stuff. (ScienceDaily)
• FARM STAND TOMATO SAUCE – Last call for summer tomatoes! Make some sauce to save some for winter. (Dishing Up the Dirt)

What inspired you this week?