Epithets and Food Politics

Reading the Odyssey for the first time, I was immediately struck by the epithets - "Gray-eyed Athena," the "wine-dark sea" (over which Dawn seems to be constantly spreading out her "fingertips of rose")...they were striking enough to worm into my 13-year-old memory and stay there, long after I had forgotten the plot.

The epithets in Homer are important. The epithets in Shape magazine are also important - "heart-healthy whole grains" and "artery-clogging saturated fat." At one point when I was hunting down nutrition information for something or other, I found an entire page that read like that: "kale is full of bone-building calcium, filling fiber, immune-boosting Vitamin C, inflammation-busting antioxidants..."