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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29335 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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It's a big tent.

RFK's strongest takes have always been about health. Americans are getting fat and sick on seed oils and other ultra-processed foods. For some reason, Democrats are celebrating this?

Whatever his quack views, Kennedy at least believes that "good things are good". I think that's the core position that defines the difference between the right and the left. He fits in the tent.

I think most Americans have no idea what an actually good apple or tomato tastes like, because virtually all produce grown here is terrible crap selected for its looks on a supermarket shelf, its easiness to grow, and its ability to withstand sitting in a truck for a few days.

I think that many Democrats think that they are being smart by eating so-called organic food or local farm food. I've eaten that organic food and local farm food, to me it mostly tastes more or less the same as supermarket stuff. Maybe like 10% better at best, and more frequently indistinguishable. It's really bad compared to actually good produce.

America does have a food problem, and it's unfortunate that most Americans do not realize it. The quality of American produce is despicably bad, it's basically trash. The meat seems okay though. And Americans are famous for not eating fruits and vegetables much anyway, maybe this is why people have not rebelled yet against the fact that their fruits and vegetables are terrible. The meat is laced with chemicals that are put in animals for various reasons, but that does not automatically make it bad of course, it depends on what exactly the chemicals do.

I have to wonder what exactly your mental model is here. When you bite into an apple you're tasting sugar, and though I have a pretty awful sense of taste, I really don't believe that others can taste vitamins. So I don't really know if when I bite into a tasteless, watery carrot, I'm actually missing out on nutrition.

A good apple has rich, complex overtones of flavor, like an entire symphony of flavor... even to the point of different aspects of the flavor manifesting themselves over time as you bite in, first one and then a second later another one becomes more prominent. And after you bite, the smell of the freshly bitten apple is heavenly, you don't even have to touch it with your mouth, the very scent manifests its complex beauty. If this seems erotic, that is because it kind of is related to eroticism, it is a deeply sensual experience to eat genuinely good food. A bad apple just tastes like sweet water, with no complexity.

Peaches and melons right from the supermarket taste as good as homegrown. Tomatoes, you have a point.

I had some plums from a Kroger store this week which were almost completely free of taste despite being the perfect softness to eat. Very offputting.

In fairness fruit is really sensitive to growing conditions. I've had figs from a tree that overproduced that were watery and tasteless.
Abandoning fairness, growers are basically incentivized to optimize for weight and transportability over flavor.

I've occasionally experienced this with various foods but eventually determined that it was usually because I was in an (often minor) illness phase accompanied by reduction in odor sensitivity. Remember that almost all of what we consider flavor is not taste but smell.

You can buy honeycrisp apples in stores that taste almost as good as the ones from my tree. Tomatoes, yeah, a lot of the best varieties just aren't fit for mass shipping.

While I wish public health was actually a large issue, for either party, I don’t see any evidence that Kamala or democrats broadly are celebrating people getting fat.

While ‘body positivity’ is generally supported, ‘Fat acceptance’ is still extremely online. At least, I’m assuming, couldn’t find polling at a glance.

If we are talking trim, fit bodies, prominent Democrats (the men, at least) probably better represent the healthy norm than Republicans. Compare Trump, Christie, Huckabee to Obama, Bernie, Newsom, even Biden. (Women there isn't as much a disparity, and might even cut the other way. Few of either party qualify as actually obese.)

That said, I see Republicans as more willing to explicitly say that fat is bad, fit is good. They just lack any meaningful follow-through.

You're just summarizing Murray in Coming Apart (2011) on EVERYTHING.

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