Food, as my colleagues in Food Studies like to say, is an entry point into the most important social, economic, and political problems facing the world now and in the past.

Today's New York Times story on testing seafood for radioactivity is a case in point. Food may seem remote from energy policy and nuclear power plants, but it is tightly linked to these issues. The Japanese have had to dump radioactive water from their tsunami-damaged power plants into the ocean.

The ocean is large and the radioactivity will be diluted, but fish and shellfish have the potential to concentrate it. That is why high-end restaurants are now testing fish for radioactivity.

Read the complete story from The Atlantic.