shadows of echoes of memories of songs

A couple of fragments both labelled 'food' (OK, food.tmp and food_2.tmp, since you ask) -- the first was clearly intended to be a comment (judging by the first line, anyway), then got a bit rambly, then I guess decided to rework it as a post, & then I added bits of another post at the end, & then I never did anything with it. So it's posted here unedited:

This is a really interesting post -- thank you!

barrysarll mentioned "Sudden Adult Death Syndrome" a while ago, as an extreme example of the disconnect between effort and results: as he put it, "In amongst all the health and terror scares, while everyone tries to improve their odds, SADS is the Reaper's little way of reminding us that the house always wins."

This also reminds me of a brilliant post by rhodri: Stop press: Everything causes and doesn't cause cancer. Which in turn reminded me of something said to me by a biochemist I briefly shared a house with, while I was an undergraduate, which has made me think ever since. He told me that he didn't want scientists to find a cure for cancer. "Everybody has to die of something," he said. "If they take away cancer, what are people going to die of?" I still disagree with his wish to avoid a cure (he's too late, anyway: cancer is no longer the death sentence it once was) but his point seems tangential to one of the ones you're making, and one that keeps occurring to me: increasingly, people seem to believe that they have a Right to avoid ill health altogether. That if they didn't do anything wrong, and they still get ill, somebody must be to blame. Maybe it's
the government, for not banning food (because a food allergy could have been responsible). Maybe it's their parents (either nature or nurture).


In the long run, we're all dead.


"Gosh, that looks healthy"

Suggestion that 'healthy' is abnormal (worthy of comment) and that choosing "healthy food" is something that people would not normally do. I feel the need to defend myself against (perceived) allegations of weight-loss dieting; I want to say that I'm just eating things I like and/or things that are convenient, but I want to do this without *denying* that it's healthy, without denying that I *try* to eat healthy food.

Yes, I want to be healthy. How many people would say that they want to be unhealthy, if asked?

What is "healthy" food? Most things are fine in moderation; most things are bad for you in excess.

And yes, I've had it forcefully explained to me since then that actually lots of people do want to be unhealthy (not just to do unhealthy things from time to time, e.g. drinking/smoking, but to be unhealthy, persistently and permanently) and that's their Inalienable Right as well, and by suggesting otherwise I am a Health Nazi and probably also guilty of Bad Fail. Too tired to deal with that argument though, because it all bleeds into the question of whether deliberately self-inflicted injuries should be treated on the NHS (which is a rusty-edged can of poisonous worms, so at the risk of being boring and "healthy" I'm not going to pick it up, I'm just going to nudge it out of the way with a very long stick), so perhaps we could just agree that it's a bit irritating when colleagues say "Gosh, that looks a bit healthy" in a kind of mocking way when we eat salads at work. Isn't it. And that anybody who says "rabbit food" when they see me shovelling an entire pot of hummous into my mouth using a couple of sticks of celery as a spoon has really not understood the insignificance of the celery in this picture.

So, enough of that, and on to the other fragment (unedited except for making the link work):

"It is cheaper to buy a Big Mac than to source focaccia, fresh tomatoes, carrots, organic beef and watercress."
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=404251&c=1

Well, yes. But you're comparing apples with oranges. If you want something cheaper than a Big Mac, it's foolish to go out and attempt to construct a Big Mac out of more expensive materials.

Big Mac =

Pack of 4 frozen beefburgers
Pack of 4 rolls
lettuce
fresh tomatoes

No, I didn't work out the costs of the beefburgers, rolls, lettuce, etc., but I suspect it would be a lot closer to the cost of a Big Mac. Also, since I started posting this it has (quite coincidentally) been pointed out by a friend on twitter that there's nothing wrong with comparing apples and oranges. To which I replied that there is: it's a waste of time when you could be eating them.

I do seem to argue with articles about food a lot in my head. But I am currently too cold and tired and hungry to have any of these arguments, and I am wishing November was over, because I have so little to say and so little energy to say it with.

A few people have said (here and elsewhere) that they share my reservations about posting because of the fear of getting flamed. I suspect those who've spoken aren't the only ones who feel it.

I have often thought that I'd like to have some kind of forum for more in-depth discussion of interesting issues where there was a general understanding that the purpose of the discussion was to build, not to destroy; a sort of intellectual version of the 'fix-it sessions' I was envisaging in another recent post, somewhere you can bring your half-formed ideas and see if with the help of others they can be made into something more coherent -- or disassembled into their component parts and reassembled into something else entirely. I love silly conversations and catchphrase-trading as much as the next guy, but there are times when it would be great to discuss something more meaty and/or more meaningful -- but to be able to do so without constantly fearing a metaphorical kick in the teeth.

Rather than wishing for this thing & doing nothing about it, I'm now thinking what the best way to organise such a community would be, with a view to doing something about actually setting it up (probably as an LJ community because that's simple and free, but other suggestions welcomed -- a real-life discussion group would be marvellous but I suspect that availability and geography would conspire against that). ( A few half-formed thoughts about different aspects of such a forum )

There are undoubtedly lots of other issues I haven't considered, but I'm basically bringing my half-formed thoughts to the table & asking politely for constructive help with fixing them. Does this sort of thing sound like a good idea? Like the sort of thing you might find interesting? How could it best be made flameproof -- or is that a misguided aim?