Thinly sliced: Meat taxes, Mario Batali, Morgan Spurlock, and more

This is the web version of a list we publish twice-weekly in our newsletter. It comprises the most noteworthy food stories of the moment, selected by our editors. Get it first here.

1. Meat taxes are coming, says a European investor group that looks at factory farm impact. The Guardian has the story.

2. Remember London’s giant fatberg? Next year, a slice of the notorious sewer-clogger will go on display at the Museum of London, the BBC reports. It’s been called “repulsively human.”

3. The New Yorker published sharp criticism of Mario Batali and the mythology of male appetite. Helen Rosner, formerly of Eater, observes that Dionysian personae are “not permitted to women.” Nor are “bodies like his, with their evidence of hungers fulfilled.”

4. The Department of Labor is extending the public comment period on a decision to roll back a tip-pooling ban, The Hill reports. We previously reported on courtroom drama that led to the ban, and what’s at stake if pooling is restored. Add your two cents—if you’re a cheapskate—over here.

5. Weird: A Seattle woman apparently caused a “disturbance” at a pizza joint over insufficient Sriracha. She was asked to leave, The Cut reports. Even weirder: FCC chairman Ajit Pai took a break from destroying net neutrality to tweet about this story and he got ratio’d hard.

6. Morgan Spurlock admitted to having been accused of rape and being unfaithful to “every wife and girlfriend I have ever had.” The Super Size Me filmmaker made the apparently unprompted confessions in the form of an essay, which ends with a plea that he is “finally ready to listen.”

7. We missed Bloomberg’s feature on America’s survival food king in November, but it’s an excellent read any time of year. What’s the takeaway? The “just add water” business is booming.