Tag: food

The More I Learn About Breast Milk, the More Amazed I Am – Features – The Stranger

http://www.thestranger.com/features/feature/2015/08/26/22755273/the-more-i-learn-about-breast-milk-the-more-amazed-i-am

Other sugars are also present, including some 150 oligosaccharides (there may be even more, scientists are really just beginning to understand them), complex chains of sugars unique to human milk. (I repeat: unique to human milk.) These oligosaccharides can’t be digested by infants; they exist to feed the microbes that populate a baby’s digestive system.

And speaking of microbes, there’s a ton of them in breast milk. Human milk isn’t sterile—it’s very much alive, filled with good bacteria, much like yogurt and naturally fermented pickles and kefir, that keep our digestive systems functioning properly. So mother’s milk contains not only the bacteria necessary to help a baby break down food, but the food for the bacteria themselves to thrive. A breast-feeding mother isn’t keeping one organism alive—but actually hundreds of thousands of them.

Skepchick | Food is for White Liberals What Sex Is For The Religious Right

Skepchick | Food is for White Liberals What Sex Is For The Religious Right.

If you are not as concerned about the people handing you your food in the restaurant as you are about the pigs on the farm where it was grown, your approach is classist. If you are more concerned about the availability of food trucks in the neighboring town than whether its residents actually want them (thanks to my dear friend Tina for setting me straight on this one), or if you buy things like this (thanks to Heina for that find), your approach is imperialist. If you start telling someone all about your new trendy diet or asking them about theirs without knowing if they have an eating disorder that may be triggered by your prattle, your approach is ableist. If you tsk-tsk at people who are overweight for what they are eating and claim you’re concerned about their health, yet you’re not actively campaigning to make healthy food more accessible and affordable, your approach is sickening and I don’t want you in my activism.

In many ways, a lot of porn is comparable to junk food…

In many ways, a lot of porn is comparable to junk food. It’s a highly distilled and concentrated formulation that is engineered to tap into some of our most basic urges. As a culture, we’re really good at taking something that’s good for us or fun and distilling it to the point of toxicity. In the case of food, it’s salt, sugar, and fat. In the case of porn, it’s formulaic, unrealistic sex that follows predictable conventions and neglects genuine pleasure. In both cases, real diversity and variety is removed and instead, superficial differences are promoted. When it comes down to it, what’s the difference between Cheetos, Doritos, Fritos, etc? They’re all corn products, with salt, fat, and variations in flavoring additives. Their purpose isn’t to nourish- their purpose is to get people to buy their products so the producers can get as much money as possible.

via sex is not the enemy.