Publish at November 02 2022 Updated November 02 2022
To introduce the topic I went to look at the definition of food only to find that the definition for human fit in one line while the definition for environment, for example, fit in a paragraph, as if humanity is more attentive to its ecosystem than to its own body, that the attentions are more turned to the outside than to the inside.
Yet our body is our vehicle, it is unique and personal and should not be the third wheel.
So I explored further to the verbs associated with nourishment:
Feed: transitive verb - (Latin alimentare)
1. To provide someone, an animal with the food necessary for their sustenance; to feed: To feed a sick person with broth.
Synonyms: to maintain - to feed - to sustenance
Antonym: to starve2. To supply to a community, a device, a place, what is necessary for its operation; supply: To supply a boiler with fuel oil, the markets with fresh vegetables.
Synonyms: to supply - to provide - to supply3. To supply a phenomenon, an action, a feeling with something to grow on: rumor fed anxiety.
To feed: pronominal verb
1. To take in food; to feed: He feeds only on fruit.
Synonyms: to feed - to restore - to sustenance2. To supply oneself with something: How does the city supply itself with water.
3. To feed oneself, to grow, to contribute through something:
Source: Larousse: https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/alimenter/2277
The vision of food states an external power that distributes it. Food mostly affects the collective or even rather the amenities of the collective.
Semantics, word choice and definition are the seeds that format our world. As a philosopher in Artificial Intelligence, I can confirm that the choice of the first words posed are indeed the seeds that will build the digital and social edifice.
In the same way, investigating the definitions of the major concepts on which our world is based is a goldmine for knowing where our society is headed. Macro observations, such as wars, innovations... are only the effects of our micro decisions like word choice. It is in the details that the future is forged.
If we go explore the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) regarding hunger, here's what it says:
"Goal 2: End hunger, ensure food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
While things have improved in many countries, hunger and malnutrition continue to take a toll. An estimated 795 million people were chronically undernourished in 2014, mostly women and children. Goal 2 aims to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030.
The global demand for food continues to grow. It is estimated that it will need to more than double by 2050 to meet the needs of the human population. 70% of undernourished people depend directly or indirectly on agriculture to meet their needs. Goal 2 aims to encourage sustainable agricultural practices so that growth in food production does not come at the expense of the environment.
As the quality of food is as important as its quantity, the goal still incorporates economic aspects. This includes doubling agricultural productivity and smallholder incomes by 2030."
Source: ODD United Nations
The angle discussed "Ending Hunger" is not about food governance but about scarcity, poverty, global management, and food quality. Where is the relationship between the human body and food?
The definition not easily found on the media should be this:
"All nutrients ingested by living beings including human beings allowing them to stay healthy and heal themselves. A lack or excess of a nutrient can throw this good health out of balance. In the same way that a lack of nutrients or a toxic nutrient can make you sick or kill you. Nutrition can also have effects in the psychological sphere in the form of excess, pleasure, addiction or disgust. Nutrition can be managed locally or globally to avoid potential famines or excess food supplies."
These deviances can be found in school and in everyday life:
1 - Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder with a health impact that can be major.
Children suffering from anorexia nervosa present:
- Difficulties in maintaining a sufficient weight for their age and size because they implement behaviors aimed at losing weight or not gaining weight (eating less, avoiding certain foods, overexerting themselves...)
- Intense fear of gaining weight, which comes to occupy all the space in their thoughts
- Disturbance of their body image: they may see themselves as very fat when they are not, pay exaggerated attention to certain parts of their body (e.g., belly, thighs)
This is a disorder that can affect both girls and boys as early as elementary school age, regardless of the environment in which they grow up.
These disorders present a major risk of impacting children's growth, puberty or brain development. It is necessary to identify them early in order to alert the family, who will consult health professionals for appropriate care.
Early identification makes it possible to limit the physical and psychological impacts on the functioning of the children."
Source: Children with Anorexia Nervosa and their Schooling
CLEPSY - https://www.clepsy.fr/scolarite-des-enfants-avec-anorexie-mentale/
Our world of the star system, of the fashion of the threadbare to a not insignificant effect on the students girls or boys. This is an important topic to address if there is a pathological presence within a classroom. It touches on normality. Is it more normal to starve oneself to be skinny or to feed oneself to be healthy?
2- Supplements, stimulants
"Five students at Marguerite-Belly elementary school in Jonquière received the services of emergency crews after ingesting household products.
According to what TVA reported, the 1st cycle students swallowed the toxic substances Tuesday morning before the beginning of classes. A young student would have brought the product normally used to wash whiteboards. It is under the pretext that it is a magic potion that she and her classmates would have taken a sip.
The staff members who got wind of the situation quickly reached the emergency services. After meeting with a doctor, the students continued their day at school and are doing well. The doctor did leave a list of symptoms to watch for. The staff jumped on the bandwagon by reminding them of the dangers of ingesting toxic products."
Source: The Lake Etolie - January 26, 2016
https://www.letoiledulac.com/faitsdivers/des-eleves-ingerent-des-produits-menagers-a-lecole-marguerite-belley/
Everything that goes into the stomach and bloodstream is a nutrient. This ranges from toxics to drugs, which are often present in schools. Similar to anorexia, awareness in affected classrooms is important. Drugs affect poor health, as does tobacco.
3- Substitutes
"Derived from the processing of chemical compounds (such as saccharin and sucralose), these artificial sweeteners are used for their sweetness. That of aspartame is 200 times greater than that of sugar. Problem: they are only empty molecules, that is to say non-foods, because they contain no nutrients and the body will hardly recognize them.
Also, when the body realizes that you are trying to betray it by taking a sugar substitute that does not lead to the rise in blood sugar, you will then eat more to achieve satiety. Therefore, it is better to opt for real sugar by replacing white sugar with brown sugar or coconut sugar, for example, which are richer in fiber and nutrients, rather than taking substitutes that may prove harmful to your health.
It promotes weight gain
As for dieters, the consumption of sweeteners has also revealed counterproductive consequences. The advantage of aspartame is that it would be low in calories and could then help to lose weight or avoid having complications of diabetes. But this argument has been shown to be false. Studies of young people, who were offered sweetened sodas and sodas with sweeteners, established that those who consumed these sweeteners ate more, which promoted weight gain.
In addition, the consumption of sweeteners also has a deleterious effect on the gut microbiota that they disrupt. This is evidenced by tests performed on mice. However, an unbalanced microbiota will have a major effect on other diseases: obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases... To preserve one's health, it is therefore better to prefer real sugar."
Source: Is aspartame dangerous to health?
EUROPE 1 - May 13, 2021
https://www.europe1.fr/sante/laspartame-est-il-dangereux-pour-la-sante-4044910
Aspartame is a symbol of the problem of malnutrition. A good and balanced nutrition accompanies good health but some innovative products cause health concerns precisely. Sometimes it is the micro-doses that are the most toxic and other times the macro-doses. This is why learning to read and understand food contents and in particular preservatives and colorants is a subject to be shared and debated because often there is no single truth about packaged products.
"Bees live and work in community, with solidarity, autonomy and awareness of future generations. In order to pollinate our ailing ecosystems, a few atypical beekeepers are trying to protect them from the activity of other greedy or yield-driven humans: provide bee colonies with a traditional habitat in trees and near diverse organic crops; let them coexist with their various viral or bacterial microorganisms; stop treating their diseases with drugs that contribute to weakening and decimating them; support their natural immunity, their propolis being the best medicine; provide them with a healthy diet, their honey free of added sugar.
This beekeeping comparison should allow us to imagine similar benevolent and intelligent treatment in the current health crisis, seemingly entering chronicity. The scandals linked to Montsanto or Bayer and the tutelage of agriculture by agribusiness giants being no longer a state secret, it would seem that we have more difficulty admitting those associated with the pharmaceutical industries to whom we grant an almost blind trust."
Source: Good for the Head - Big Pharma, What a Green Balance Sheet - November 19, 2021
https://bonpourlatete.com/actuel/big-pharma-quel-bilan-ecologique
Drugs are also nutrients. Today, there are also alicaments, a kind of mix between food and medicine.
In fact, there is a shift today of food becoming, in people's minds, as important as drugs: those who can no longer put any nutrient into their bodies with their eyes closed.
Giving absolute trust is no more relevant than it once was to staying healthy, and within a few years we may be facing a shift in the posture of nutrients with, for example, requirements as stringent for the marketing of new experimental nutrients as the testing protocols imposed on drugs. Which would be quite logical and normal when we are talking about synthetic molecules.
Image source: Dandelion_tea
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