Today's lead
February 2026 Edition · Issue .02
Longevity, Legacy & the Things That Last
Each issue takes a single question and works it through the lens of food, lifestyle, and human behavior. This month: what makes a life that holds up over time.
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Features
The Long Read
Original reporting
I'm 38 and have never said the words "I love you" out loud to anyone — not to a partner, not to my parents, not to the brother I'd take a bullet for — and the silence isn't because the feeling isn't there, it's because I grew up in a house where nobody ever said them either, and the words you weren't given as a child are the hardest words to learn how to give back as an adult
The words you weren't given as a child are the hardest words to learn how to give back as an adult, and I'm finding out, at thirty-eight, just how much harder than I had assumed
Original reporting
Boomers who watch hours of TV a day are often grieving the specific kind of company a long marriage used to provide — the running commentary of a shared life — and the news anchor who reliably appears at the same hour is the partner who still shows up at the table on time
The news anchor at six o'clock isn't entertainment. Sometimes's he's the partner who still shows up at the table on time
From the wider press
What We're Reading
VegOut covers food, animals, environment, and the systems linking all three. These are the deep pieces from across the wider press that are shaping how our editors think about the beat. Updated weekly.
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Mongabay
After quinoa’s boom, Bolivian farmers face degraded soils and climate stress
A deeply reported look at how global demand for a plant-based superfood drove monoculture, soil degradation, and climate vulnerability for Bolivian farmers — a cautionary tale about sustainable food systems.
Read on Mongabay -
The Counter
Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?
This investigation scrutinizes California's subsidies for dairy methane digesters, questioning whether the state's climate math actually props up factory farming instead of driving real emissions reductions.
Read on The Counter -
Sentient Media
Faster Slaughterhouse Line Speeds Are Increasingly a Climate Problem
This investigation connects slaughterhouse line-speed deregulation under the Trump administration to climate impacts, worker safety, animal welfare, and food policy — revealing how agribusiness efficiency demands create compounding harms across the food system.
Read on Sentient Media -
Sentient Media
Organic Dairies Say Federal Pricing System Costs Them Millions
These lawsuits expose how federal dairy pricing rules funnel millions from organic producers to industrial operations — revealing structural flaws in a system that props up Big Dairy at sustainability's expense.
Read on Sentient Media
Themed reading
Wellness, Decoded
Psychology, mindfulness and the small habits that shape how we live.
Quote of the day by Helen Mirren: "You can't control how other people see you or think of you, but you have to be comfortable with that."
I'm 35 and I just learned why making close friends is so hard. Research suggests it takes around 50 hours to become casual friends, 90 to friends, and 200 plus to close friends. Adult life rarely hands us those hours
The most grounded people in their forties often aren't the ones with the cleanest morning routines, they're the ones who stopped treating wellness as another performance review and started treating it as the bare minimum of being kind to themselves
Watch
VegOut on YouTube
Long-form conversations on food, science, and the lives behind the recipes. New episode every week.
The Foods Slowly Damaging Your Brain (And What to Eat Instead)
Fasting May Be Destroying Your Gut — Unless You Do This
This Ancient Food Is Alive — And It May Heal Your Gut
Fiber: The Rediscovery That Changed How We Understand Chronic Disease
From Hospital to CattleCon: The Real Story of Keto
The Plant That Outperforms Meat and The $650 Million Industry Built to Kill It
Take the quiz
If you were a healing herb, which would you be?
Each herb holds a unique kind of magic — soothing, awakening, grounding, or clarifying. This 9-question quiz reveals the healing plant that mirrors your energy right now and what it says about your natural rhythm.
News
In the news
What's happening across food, science, climate and the systems shaping how we live.
Inside the deepfake Zoom “boardroom” that cost a Singapore businessman S$4.9 million
Unlicensed, drug-positive driver charged in Bangkok rail crash that killed eight
Fructose isn't acting like a calorie inside the body — and a sweeping new Nature Metabolism review argues that's why cutting soda alone won't reverse the metabolic disease curve
Most recent
Latest stories
The art of needing less
I used to think comfort came from having more options. Now I think it comes from needing fewer
7 things I stopped buying this year that made me feel richer, not poorer
I stopped trying to live perfectly and started making these 7 small choices instead — and my life feels lighter because of it
Stillness is what's left when we stop filling every gap with noise
