I was speaking to my husbands grandmother (92) recently when the discussion of cooking came up. She mentioned when she was young, they never had salads, they weren’t really a thing. She mentioned most vegetables came in a can, and now salads were expected at meals.

This women eats very little, and very healthy. I bet one reason why she’s still sharp at 92. But it made me think of the culture around food we have in the sates over the last 50-60 years.

We now have full generations of folks not taught how to cook from scratch. I was lucky, growing up on a small farm, my guardian did teach me the basics, igniting a love for cooking. That plus the early 2000’s Food Network shows, I was able to self learn and now I feel invincible in the kitchen. Though I will say I still fuck up from time to time. I made zucchini bread, and definitely didn’t add enough flour, and my bread is very hit or miss. Anyways,

You can’t teach your children what you don’t know youself. So many folks out there don’t know what to do with raw ingredients. I grow oregano, and it’s just all over the yard this year. I tried giving some to my (60-ish) neighbor, and she said, “I dont know what to do with that”.

It’s a fucking herb lady, put it in your stew.

The commercialization of foods from the center isles really had damaged our, collective food knowledge. There are exceptions of folks, similar to me, but a vast number have no clue, nor is it a point in our (American) culture to make sure young folks know how to feed themselves with little ingredients. This road began its paving in the 50/60s with convenience cooking, and the loss of home gardens.

And to add, as a well versed home cook, you absolutely can make super unhealthy foods from scratch as well. Learning to cook is healthier than fast food, but you can absolutely throw down some calorie dense foods in your own kitchen too. It’s not a cure all for health.

Sample size of 1, but I’ve basically stopped buying beef since many years back because of how much more expensive it was as compared to chicken or vegetarian options. Granted, I like the climate benefits as well, but I wound down my beef purchasing before that was a more primary concern of mine.

This is in Sweden where beef prices as compared to alternatives have been high for a long time.

“We need to eat” rhymes poorly with climate wrecking animal farming, which not only speeds up harvest devastating warming and flooding – it also consumes a lot of food and uses enormous amounts of farmable land.

Poor people are not in any way immune to the apocalypse and will have to change their lifestyles one way or the other.

You’re championing dying with a belly full of cheeseburgers over tofu and a shot at long term survival. It’s not progressive.

Agreed. But the west shouldn’t do that until fascists in Russia and China are lead as far away from power as possible and the genocides they perpetrate stopped.

And those can be easily be financed with rich people’s money, there’s a lot of that to go around.

And regardless, if the west accumulates enough weapons, the associated deterrence will be dissuasive enough anyway.