"This was a bit shocking," said the student.

According to the AP, Weaver's observations align with a study by Western Carolina University psychology professor Hal Herzog, who found that 34 people out of his class of 100 had intentionally run over a turtle or been in a car with someone who had at some point. Two-thirds of those who admitted this were male.

"They aren't thinking, really. It is not something people think about. It just seems fun at the time," Herzog said. "It is the dark side of human nature."

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During a conversation with former BBC host Jonathan Ross for the iTunes Festival earlier this week, Gwyneth confessed that she never let her kids pass through the Golden Arches, something that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who hears the self-confessed "foodie" talk about her healthy culinary home.

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Let's look at some big-time comfort foods: Fried chicken. French fries. Chocolate cake. When people talk about comfort food, the obvious explanation is that it's all about nostalgia and missing Mommy. But that's also cultural. Look at lutefisk, natto and the reddish-black blood sausage I was served once by a sad Belgian who took comfort in what struck me as something you might see in a hospital. And really, it takes more than this to create the rush of sensations that make us feel safe, calm and cared for. It's a complex interplay of memory, history and brain chemistry, and while some basics apply -- most of us are soothed by the soft, sweet, smooth, salty and unctuous -- the specifics are highly personal.

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We spoke to JJ Virgin over the phone about what qualifies someone to be a "freaky eater," as well as some of the more extreme measures they've taken on the program to make people confront their dangerous life choices.

This is the second season of the show, and there has been a lot of controversy about programs similar to "Freaky Eaters," like "Hoarders" and "Intervention." Some people are wondering if putting these people up on screen is helpful or just exploitative. What is your response to that sort of claim?

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Do you:

A) Call back the restaurant and ask for a refund;

B) Just eat the food and promise to deal with it next time;

C) Call the police

If you answered C, you are not alone. A woman in Savannah, Ga., called 911 to rectify her dinner order yesterday. This was the result:

Sadly, these kinds of calls aren't as uncommon as you might think. In March 2009 a woman called the police after being given the wrong order of McNuggets at McDonald's.

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And while this grievance might not seem new, exactly, CAI is launching another campaign on Thursday against Ronald McDonald himself, whom the watchdog group called a "Deep Fried Joe Camel." They claim Ronald's the equivalent of a drug pusher for MSG-addicted kids.

But how "friendly" is Ronald? A new study done by outside marketing group Ace Metric found that in a survey group of 500, an overwhelming amount found a guy with big red lips and white greasepaint more creepy than cute.

McDonald's refuses to give up on Ronald, though, and its defense on why it needs to keep a terrifying clown as its mascot would be charming if it weren't so ridiculous and backward. Below, five of the responses McDonald's has given for keeping Ronald on the payroll.

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I am all for veganism, vegetarianism, whatever, but I am also a big fan of "live and let live" mentality. I also don't like to be given health advice by someone who lost so much weight on her last film that people were legitimately scared for her well-being. Let's just say, I would not buy that person's brand of vegan shoes, because there are a lot of shoes out there that are technically "vegan" (i.e., not leather) and do not cost $355.

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A recent report in the New York Times announced that American grocery store "shoppers are paying the same amount, but getting less," and proceeded to quote a woman whose three-box pasta dinner for her large family didn't quite satisfy. She only later realized it was because those boxes now contain 13.5 ounces of noodles, not 16.

The report goes on to catalog other shrinkages: cans of tuna going from 6 ounces to 5; buckets of ice cream going from 2 liters to 1 ½; orange juice from 64 ounces to 59, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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"I come from a family of Irish dairy farmers," he said. "We used to milk the cows every morning at 5 a.m., and keep impregnating them every five months so they would keep producing milk. That was floating around in my head -- why are human breasts sexualized, rather than being seen as biological feeding instruments?"

After he nearly sold out his first batch in a single day in late February, he found himself having a conversation with a Westminster Council health inspection team, who whisked the last few scoops off the shelves for safety testing (it was since deemed safe and will be back on sale shortly). Now he's conversing with Lady Gaga's lawyers, who have threatened an injunction for copyright infringement, an action he compared to the behavior of a "playground bully or despotic dictators like Colonel Gaddafi or Robert Mugabe [rather] than an artist celebrating artistic freedom."

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But is all truly saved? Surely the phase-out of incandescent bulbs is good for the world -- I mean, that a 100-watt bulb was so inefficient at turning energy into light that it could cook a cake as a byproduct is sort of its own argument against itself. Still, I can't help feeling a little something may be lost with the change.

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First, he'll have to get over the resistance to this counter-intuitive notion and the anger of the six or seven still-employed magazine food editors in America. I mean, isn't the whole point of food porn to make you drool in your lap and want to tear into a pot pie? Yes, Tierney explains, but there's a difference between the psychological phenomena of "sensitization," which is when picturing that hot, steamy pot pie makes you want it, and "habituation," which is when you get over that desire, satisfying it. What Carey Morewedge (I find it impossible to not say his full name) found was that people can bypass their desire and trigger habituation to food. But to do so, you can't just imagine having it in front of you; that leads to sensitization. You have to really, concertedly imagine yourself in the process of eating it. A bunch of it.

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Even after a month he was energetic and spry, with remarkably lower cholesterol, but, as you might expect, matters of the body and matters of the mind are not so simple. That is to say, he was going bonkers from eating nothing but seven pounds of potatoes each day, desperately finding no-calorie ways to flavor them and hitting bottom when he stole a co-worker's packets of Taco Bell hot sauce. He posted on his blog distressing cries for help like, "One of those days where you really wonder what the heck you're doing. While I know I love potatoes, it was hard to keep eating them. I hung in there but I was the star of my own little pity party yesterday."

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It's a history that seems to ring hollow, though, when you're cramped in coach, eating your packet of sorry peanuts and considering whether it's worth the eight bucks for a cardboardy chicken wrap. But those in the know remember a different time, like Patrick Smith, author of "Ask the Pilot," who recalls: "My very first airplane flight was in coach, an hour-long domestic flight in 1974. They served hot sandwiches and a cheesecake dessert," a far cry from pretzel dust and two more cookies you wish you could ask for. So what happened?

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For 60 days, all the executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission will eat are potatoes, seven pounds a day of them, to demonstrate that potatoes are so nutritionally whole that you can live off them for months. Sure, his body might live, but what about his mind and spirit? I don't know, but when our friends at Eater.com referred to Voigt's potato-diet blog as a document of "an increasingly broken and desperate man," well, we had to take a look at the slow-motion car crash.

He's nearly halfway through his challenge, which began on Oct. 1, and reading his posts is a little like reading diaries from the Donner Party, eerie announcements from a mental state slipping further and further away. It's amazing. We've combed through his record (sorry, there are no links to individual posts) to help tell his story (in a form edited for space). Enjoy, and maybe shed a tear for Chris Voigt. 

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to use marketing tricks to encourage kids to pick fruits and veggies over cookies and french fries.

Some of the ideas include hiding chocolate milk behind plain milk, putting the salad bar near checkout, placing fruit in pretty baskets and accepting only cash as payment for desserts.

Studies by Cornell University researchers have found these tactics work, and Cornell will start a new child nutrition center to test more of these methods.

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Bloomberg and Paterson planned to announce Thursday that they are seeking permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the nation's food stamp program, to add sugary drinks to the list of prohibited goods for city residents receiving assistance.

If approved, it would be the first time an item would be banned from the federal program based solely on nutritional value.

The idea has been suggested previously, including in 2008 in Maine, where it drew criticism from advocates for the poor who argued it unfairly singled out low-income people and risked scaring off potential needy recipients.

And in 2004 the USDA rejected Minnesota's plan to ban junk food, including soda and candy, from food stamp purchases, saying it would violate the Food Stamp Act's definition of what is food and could create "confusion and embarrassment" at the register.

In New York, a proposal to adopt a penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened soda failed to get out of the state Legislature earlier this year; Bloomberg backed the state proposal.

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Because gluten-free is what low-carb was a decade ago: The "it" diet discussed on daytime talk shows, promoted by hyper-slim actresses and adopted by masses. Grocery aisles are stocked with the likes of gluten-free pasta, crackers, cereal and beer.

Americans are enthusiastically exiling a dietary staple that wasn't even in most people's vocabulary a decade ago.

But why?

Unlike some other dietary boogeymen like trans-fats, gluten is not inherently bad to eat. Only a small percentage of people can't tolerate the protein, which occurs naturally in wheat, barley and rye. Plus, banning gluten from your diet can be really hard.

Not only is gluten an essential element of traditional breads and pastas (it's the protein that gives them their structure), it often is used as a thickening agent in processed foods, such as ketchup and ice cream. And cutting out gluten is no guarantee of weight loss.

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Texas -- whose specialty is fried anything -- put on a spectacular showing this year of pure greasy audacity. The Texans took an innocuous salad, added cheese, ham and bacon, deep fried it and impaled it on a skewer. If there were a prize for impudence, Texas would be an obvious shoo-in.

But this year's overall winner would have to be Wisconsin. What it lacked in cheek, it made up for in creativity. Ponder, if you will, the gravity-defying genius of the Irish-stew-on-a-stick. Not to be flummoxed by the unstickworthiness of the myriad vegetable and meat components of a stew, vendor Slim McGinn's created a pastry shell, stuffed it with braised lamb (and we're guessing veggies), and presented it to us on a stick. Sheer brilliance! Other vendors offered frozen grapes on a stick, spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, and deep-fried cream cheese and bacon on a stick. How's that for good old Midwestern gumption?

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The Mongols were brutal and pragmatic and mobile. I was self-indulgent and listless, but now suddenly obsessed with their stories. When I arrived in Mongolia as a Peace Corps volunteer two years later, it was with a rucksack full of romance, too little long underwear, and a hunger. Mongolians ate horses, and I wanted to join them. I wanted to ingest some history and culture. Perhaps I did a little too much reading.

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