Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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Is "food" a social construct? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 months ago by TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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Hear me out. There's nothing innate to an object that makes it "food". It's an attribute we give to certain things that meet certain qualities, i.e. being digestible, nutritious, perhaps tasty or satisfying in some way, etc. We could really ingest just about anything, but we call the stuff that's edible "food". Does that make it a social construct?

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[–] joel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Food is a non-toxic, organic substance that provides nutrition in the form of carbohydrates, protein, fibre, fats/oils, and/or vitamins and minerals. Sure there are some edge cases which you can argue the point in, such as a lump of rock salt maybe, but for the most part it is something which provides sustenance. Sure you could eat mud or plaster and it won't kill you, but it won't help keep you alive either, so its not food.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sure there are some edge cases which you can argue the point in

isn't that kind of a big deal, though? either it's not socially constructed and you can't argue in edge cases, or it is socially constructed and you can. as for what you do with this conclusion, it really doesn't matter.......

until you start discussing social constructs with someone and you have to remember that even the concept of food is socially constructed. which should really comfort us and remind us that this means something can be a social construct and still real, meaningful, and important, but instead it seems everyone wants to freak out at the concept! even in this thread.

[–] joel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I agree that the pile-on wasn't necessary, people tend to just give their kneejerk response and then move on. Having said that, you probably could have explained your case a bit better too in the original post.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

explain better? I don't wanna lecture. I wanna talk. we figure it out together. that's what we do together, as a community, instead of telling people off, like here! definitely got some easy new names for my block list though.

Imagine being trans though, holy shit, I don't envy having to do this regularly....