You’re at Whole Foods or some similar place somewhere else. Just being there makes you feel good, hip, organic. You walk down the wide, splendid aisle. You remember what your doctor said about dairy products and you are, once again, determined to cut them out. All that fat.

Millions love the Paleo or “Cave Man” Diet. Early humans lived in sync with nature, and so they were healthier, remaining free from cancer, heart disease, and obesity until dying in their thirties from predation or childbirth. For that great beach body, you can’t go wrong eating the same cauliflower bisques and gluten-free cookies as our hunter-gatherer ancestors. But why limit yourself to one time period? History provides us with an exciting array of dieting options.

My name is Nick Hilbourn, professional English major and, regrettably, a father.

If you’re like me, then you dearly regret having children. Although they are precious and wonderful when they first claw their way out of a woman’s vaginal cavity – by age one, they are detestable.

The leggy blonde behind the microphone clears her throat one final time. The capacity crowd—already restless in anticipation of the first pitch on Opening Day—struggles to temper themselves. The players line the base paths, hats over hearts, shifting their weight from leg to leg as nerves tighten. Finally, a silky but dynamic voice fills the stadium.

I want to talk about hunger.

There’s an old saying that you may have heard. Too often we miss the forest for the trees. Because: there are too many goddamn trees. So many trees, way too many trees. That’s why the humane thing to do is to allow hunters to periodically and metaphorically “prune” them, because sometimes—maybe even most of the time—the only way to save something is to kill it.