Whenever I eat a lot of junk food I end up feeling depressed, can't think straight, and find myself getting annoyed easily.
According to Dr. Ryuta Kawashima "If you find yourself getting angry at the drop of a hat, it could be a sign of decreased brain function."
Food has the ability to affect mood and brain function. Logically, one could make the conclusion that fast-food could be a contributing factor in the decline of American (and other countries') intelligence.
But fast-food is not completely to blame. The ease of trading paper for cheap food is a choice. No one is forcing the food down our throats. We make the choice to put something damaging into our body.
But chemically unbalancing us is not the only contributing factor. Because we have the ability to buy premade food we loose the training it takes to make the food in the first place.
How many of us could make a loaf of bread from scratch using an open fire? Or how many of us know how to roll and make our own noodles?
A person that goes on a two-week vacation can drop their IQ by 20%. How much more are we losing by choosing to not know how to make something our ancestors could make? Years and years of food-preparation negligence is in no way helping us and only continues to hinder us.
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I completely agree with you that the fact that we can't/don't know how to prepare a lot of foods that our ancestors did is hindering us. It is crazy to me that your IQ can drop 20% if you go on a two week vacation! Is that just because of all of the unhealthy food we consume and our lack of thinking or what? Do you think that our moods are largely effected by the kinds of food we eat? I think that food prepared by hand tastes a lot better than say going to get a burger at McDonalds so it's too bad that people don't take the time to learn how to make things. They should have restaraunts where they supply all the ingredients and you make your own food. Do they have those?
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting way to look at things. I never really thought about how this is inhibiting our abilities to make food. I personally can make noodles, not so much bread though. The only reason I know this is because my parents felt like they had to teach me. A lot of my friends actually cannot even cook a simple meal unless it comes out of a box and has directions. I do agree with “Whenever I eat a lot of junk food I end up feeling depressed, can't think straight, and find myself getting annoyed easily.” If you want to see a first time experience you should rent “Supersize me”. This might be interesting to tie in with your essay. Funny thing is when I actually looked up the definition of supersize (yes, it is a real word) the second definition that came up was “to increase the size of something ordered, esp. a food item; also written super-size”(Dictionary.com). This shows how engrained such places as McDonald’s really is in our nation.
ReplyDeleteLanee: In other countries there are foods that provide the ingredients and have the customer make the food, but because of American tendencies to press charges and sue over anything it's less common here. The IQ dropping is because of how little we use our brains when on vacation. I read that in a book of useless facts. Everyonce in a while a statement will pop into my head.
ReplyDeletewiggy: I think I will watch that movie. Anytime I bring up what I'm writing about someone will tell me to watch it. It's funny that "supersize" is a word. People like Shakespeare used to invent new words, and now we have new words being invented by Homer Simpson and McDonald's.
"Supersize" is a perfect example of how pop culture can affect language, even create new words and new uses for old words. Bill Bryson's article in Text Messaging illustrates this phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteDavid: about the 20% dumb-down on vacation. I suppose it depends on how you vacation. I usually feel smarter after vacations; I've had to figure out train and bus routes, use words in various languages, remember where I parked the rental, go to numerous museums...maybe that says something about the difference between a tourist and a traveler.