"It depends how you measure it. Whether you're measuring the energy, or the calories that are in there, there's so much junk food involved there.

I just wish we had a proper criteria for what we call 'food'.

Do you include Mars Bars as 'food'? I know that on our exports ... in StatsNZ wine is listed as a 'food'. This word 'food' covers such a broad range."

#MikeJoy, 2026

https://thekaka.substack.com/p/mini-hoon-live-with-bernard-hickey

(2/?)

"A lot of the time it's things that are produced here that go away to be processed and then we buy them back again. It is this bizarre situation that defies all logic, but 'the market' has driven it."

#MikeJoy, 2026

https://thekaka.substack.com/p/mini-hoon-live-with-bernard-hickey

I've studied under Dr Mike Joy and I'm familiar with his work as an academic ecologist. This is not a man who makes stuff up off the cuff that he can't back up. I very much look forward to reading his documentation of all this.

(3/?)

I'm fascinated in particular by the lack of a sensible scholarly consensus on what counts as 'food'. I'm guessing that are good reasons for this. Food is one of those 'I know it when I see it things'. Try coming up with a clear set of criteria for what is and isn't food, and you'll soon find yourself stumbling over edge cases.

(4/?)

Chocolate bars for example. They're not particularly *healthy*. But we eat them, and our bodies can digest them and extract energy, and maybe some trace nutrients. So kind of food.

Or wine. Alcohol drinks are pretty clearly recreational drugs, like cannabis edibles. But like the chocolate bar, both can be digested in our bodies to provide some of the things we need from food.

(5/?)

What we probably need is a robust scholarly definition of 'essential food'. The stuff we need to have available in sufficient quantities, accessible to everyone, to avoid seeing malnutrition in our communities.

Neither chocolate bars, nor wine, nor cannabis edibles would fit that definition.

(6/?)