I wasn’t familiar with the term “food swings,” but when I saw the article about it in Thursday’s NY Times, I knew exactly what it meant. We’ve all had occasional bouts of “hanger,” that cranky condition that only eating can cure.

As any new mother knows, babies need to be fed at regular intervals. I guess that makes me a big baby, because I, too, become hyper irritable if more than a few hours elapse between meals. It’s a natural consequence of growing up in a household where meals arrived on the table with a precision that a certain mustachioed fascist would have found admirable.