"Let's start the foodie backlash," cries Steven Poole in The Guardian. Way ahead of you, son.

The American mall is dying, and dying, and, let me check... yep, still dying. Not just big huge malls, but big-box stores, and strip malls, and everything else that consists of chain stores shaped like boxes, made out of plastic, selling crap. America, in other words. Now our national landscape is littered with the only thing worse than big box stores: empty big box stores. Hey, ho, is there any solution?

After a day of failed fishing, Sergio Alvarez was homeless and hungry in Malibu last month when he says he did what millions of red-blooded Americans do every year when they want some food: He killed a bird in order to eat it. What Alvarez didn't know is that while the type of pelican he strangled to death wasn't endangered, it was on the protected species list. The 30-year-old Alvarez was arrested on the spot, and now he's going to jail for two months after pleading no contest to misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Tired of hearing your hippie friends cluck their tongues at you for eating "unhealthy" regular produce instead of the pricier organic stuff they buy? I'm a super-strict vegetarian who lives in California, and those people even get on my nerves. From now on, send anyone who chastises your non-organic ways to these two new studies that say organic food may not be so wonderful, despite the fact that it's oftentimes more expensive and revered by the Bikram set.

Sure, you like drinking canned Diet Pepsi that was prepared who knows when from who knows what and shipped who knows how far who knows how long ago. But sometimes your Diet Pepsi gets that... not so fresh flavor. It's almost as if there's something—what's the word I'm looking for?—natural in there.

In the fabled "golden age" of America, parents were able to rest easy knowing that their kids would have good schools to attend, safe neighborhoods in which to play, and ample cholesterol-enriched food to consume as they grew. No more. Schools are hell; parks are weed-infested; and children just like yours are eating food severely lacking in precious cholesterol. Is your child's internal reserve of cholesterol at risk?

Pig evisceration company Tyson Foods saw its profits fall by 61% in the most recent quarter. Why? Humans, humbled by the realization of our own role as merely another in a long line of millions of animal species to briefly stand atop the food chain on this crazy spinning rock over which we ultimately have little control, and struck by the unavoidable ethical conviction that it is wrong to increase the suffering of sentient creatures unnecessarily, are turning away from their brutal chicken, pork, and beef-based diets of the past and embracing a new, plant-based diet of a happier, healthier, and more righteous communal future. From the NYT:

I'm sure that railroads are a tough business. Probably takes a lot of skill and savvy to turn a profit. I'll give you that. But you know what is not a tough business in which to profit? Selling food and drinks at a virtually unlimited markup to a captive audience with no other options. Amtrak cannot even make a dollar doing that.

"Did you see the news today? The scientists are saying that chocolate could be good for your blood circulation. Well I'll be. Who knew? Chocolate is a health food? No more going to the doctor for me! I have a bag of Hershey's Kisses, and that's a lot cheaper than health insurance! Oh, maybe I'll still go to my favorite doctor—Mr. Goodbar! Doctor Hershey's, I should say! I have a pill bottle—full of M&Ms! It does wonders! It always makes me feel better! Hey, I guess now you can eat whatever you want for dinner—as long as you have a chocolate sundae for dessert! Dessert is the new diet! I'm going on an all-chocolate diet—for my health! If chocolate is healthy, well, I'm a regular Olympic athlete! Send me to London—for the 100-meter chocolate dash! And swimming—in a pool of chocolate! I'd definitely win the gold medal! I hope it's just gold foil covering chocolate! I think I'll give up jogging and take up eating more! I've cut back my jogging to only one destination—the candy store! It's for my health, thank you! I'm giving up the Weight Watchers in favor of chocolate milkshakes—for my health! Hey, can these scientists have a little talk with my waistline? It doesn't seem to be listening to reason! I'm skipping the gym today and just eating chocolate instead—for my health! This is the greatest discovery since sliced bread—even better, actually, because I'm on a low-carb diet! Except for chocolate carbs! I have to eat those—doctor's orders! Chocolate—for my health! I approve this message!"

Just FYI, watch out if you go walking around Maine, because gross pinchy underwater spider monsters are practically overrunning the entire coastline like an army sent from hell to destroy humanity, with claws. The time for hope is past.

Because we can't all afford to eat off NY Mag's Cheap Eats list, this week several popular fast food chains are giving away [vaguely] food[ish things] for free. Here's a guide to who's giving away what and how far you'll have to debase yourself to get it:

What's it like to be a reader of New York magazine? Let's do a thought exercise. Imagine yourself waking up mid-afternoon in the hermetically-sealed sleeping tube that takes up most of the third floor of your luxurious brownstone. Outside the door of your bedroom, your robot maid is preparing a lunch. But today, you want something different. Today, you want to meet with the common people. "Servant!" you call. "Bring me... New York's 2012 'Cheap Eats' list!"

Is there any huge corporation too evil to engage in the production and marketing of yogurt, America's new crack cocaine? It appears that the answer is "no," as PepsiCo is now joining the yogurt fray, already occupied by a rogue's gallery of multinational players, Greek and otherwise. How much disinformation and propaganda must the "mainstream media" disseminate before the yogurt wars come to an end?

The battle for the heart and soul of America's yogurt preferences is a marketer's version of brutal and ceaseless trench warfare, as you, the consumer, are bombarded by wave after wave of new yogurt product from a mind-blowing variety of yogurt factions, all hoping to deluge your taste buds with just the right yogurt flavor to make you a yogurt addict of their own particular yogurt variety. Are you ready, America—for more yogurt?

Everyone in California has lost their damn minds in advance of the state's foie gras ban that goes into effect this Sunday, July 1st.

As an American I though I'd grown jaded to bizarre pizza toppings. After all, I've seen my compatriots create such abominations as the cheeseburger crust pizza, the breakfast pizza and the Oreo pizza. So it is a testament to Swedes' twisted imagination that Swedish pizzas makes me wonder what they're putting in the Fjords up there.

Since we're on the topic of basic fairness for the working people of America, here is a useful thing: a pro-worker group called Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has produced a handy pocket guide to many of America's most popular restaurants, to let you know exactly how badly their employees are treated. The short version, below.

I've never been to Greece, or to one of those "fancy" grocery stores, but that doesn't stop me from being an expert on Greek yogurt, excluding the kinds actually made in Greece and the kinds sold in "fancy" grocery stores. Real American Greek yogurt, is what I'm talking about. And if there's one thing I know besides Real American Greek yogurt, it's that Americans do not know what kind of Greek yogurt they should be eating.

Smooth move by thinspirational pro-ana billionaire Mike Bloomberg: he'll ban big huge sodas that poor people drink, sure, but don't worry, people who actually vote and/ or donate money to political campaigns—your precious huge syrupy Starbucks quote sweetened coffee beverages unquote will be safe, because they contain milk.

If you're as American as I assure you I am, don't even look it up, then you can't be limited to just regular old sugar. Regular sugar is white, but "this land is your land" (multicultural). When you get a mighty hunger after driving your pickup truck to the American football games, nothing will hit that "sweet spot" except for some delicious real corn sugar. Whoops, sorry—the government bureaucrats aren't "okay" with that.