Junk Food

and its effects on obesity

How much is junk food to blame for the current spike in obesity worldwide?

What is it about junk food that's dangerous?

Could it be the food itself?
Is it how much of the food we eat?

The availability of the food?

Psychology of Weight Loss

Why are humans so fixated on weight loss as a goal?

Are we wrong to put so much emphasis on body weight over other measures of health?

Are we perhaps adding to the problems of negative self-image by being so focused on weight?

Are we doing irreparable harm to the human psyche?

Or should we in fact be focusing on this problem because of the myriad diseases and health problems that unhealthy weight brings along with it?

Are You Dining Out During COVID?

Really?

Studies have all but proven that a huge vector of disease transmission is restaurant environments

However, restaurants make up a huge section of both the world and national economy. The damage that prolonged closing of restaurants could do to finances around the world could provoke much worse, much longer lasting repercussions.

"Natural" foods

Whatever that means.

What makes a food natural?

Is that a real distinction?

How many people take vitamin supplements? Would you consider those natural? Why or why not?

Did you know that astronauts and submariners, among some other groups of people, have to take Vitamin D supplements because they don't get enough exposure to sunlight? And the supplements work fine.

Are foods created in labs really all that bad for you?

I love the Impossible Burger - it has everything I want in a burger, but I don't have to have a cow sacrificed to eat it. Wouldn't that be better than "natural"?

Banning/Restricting Plastics

(specifically bags, take out containers, and straws)

Some Concerns

• Accessibility concerns (plastic straws)

• Financial (plastic take out containers vs paper: styrofoam is also usually banned, leaving few options)

• Convenience and weight reduction (plastic bags/bottles, and other packaging)

• Safety/purity (plastic packaging is more tamper resistant and also more sterile)

GM Foods vs Organic

All foods have been genetically modified

The newest method is actually the most scientific and easiest to control and experiment with

Plant-Based Diets

Agriculture, specifically of meat, is one of the leading causes of global warming.

There are also concerns about ethics of eating sentient animals

Wet markets

What is a wet market?

And why is it such a common disease vector?

What are the alternatives?

Public School Foods

Both breakfasts and lunches

Not just in grade schools either. Some colleges have had major issues during the pandemic.

Cultural Appropriation of Food

Who can cook what ethnic food?

And why can only certain peoples cook certain food?

Are foods truly culturally unique?

What assumptions have we made about foods that are just wrong?

Tomatoes and Spicy peppers

These are both native to Central and South America, meaning there were no tomatoes nor spicy capsicum peppers eaten anywhere in the entire world until colonists landed in the New World. There are no exceptions to this.

That means if you have any dish from anywhere else in the world that uses a pepper to add heat to a dish, it's cultural appropriation, right? This is not an exaggeration or in any way incorrect. Literally every single spicy pepper across the entire world was unheard of until the 1500s when Spanish and Portuguese explorers brought them from South America to the rest of the world.

Irish peoples and potatoes? Germans and Ashkenazi Jews in the Germanic counties around Munich?

Knishes, pierogies, gnocchi, etc?

100% has to be cultural appropriation, right?

Because potatoes are native to exactly one area in the world - the Andes mountains. Literally every potato everywhere else in the world descends from potatoes that ancient Andean people cultivated before Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas.

Noodles?

Until the opening of the trade between the East and West around the time of Marco Polo, noodles were unheard of outside of China and other East Asian countries.

Any Italian dish that uses any kind of noodle has to be cultural appropriation, right?

Chinese Take-out in the US

An awful lot of people get angry at the US for the food sold in Chinese take-out restaurants because it isn't "authentic" to China.

Except that Chinese Americans are the ones who made the foods. When they moved to the US in the 1800s, largely to work as veritable slaves in the railroad industry, they brought food techniques and tastes with them, but had to adapt because different staples were here that weren't common in China.

You read that correctly. Chocolate. There is no chocolate in the world whatsoever outside of Central and South America until colonizers in the 1500s took it.

So is cultural appropriation really all that bad?

Celebrity Food Endorsements

Yes, the Travis Scott meal at Mickey D's

But it's far from alone.

Food Advertising directed at children

Happy Meals

But also ads on TV for sugary cereals and candies and whatnot.

Food and Social Class

Or why are some foods considered foods for rich people while others are considered peasant food?

Grocery and Food shortages

Pandemic, yes

But not just! There are runs on foods and grocery items all the time for various reasons, and that leads to much bigger problems.

Ketogenic (and other fad) diets

Why do we focus on specific diets?

Maybe ketogenic diets are good. Maybe not. Maybe Weight Watchers. Maybe Jenny Craig. Etc.

Is our focus on specifics because they work?

Or because we don't want to do the real hard work of moderation plus exercise ourselves?

(I know my answer - I'm too lazy, and I'll blame everything for my failures but myself.)