this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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Is "food" a social construct? (lemm.ee)
submitted 5 months ago by TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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Hear me out. There's nothing innate to an object that makes it "food". It's an attribute we give to certain things that meet certain qualities, i.e. being digestible, nutritious, perhaps tasty or satisfying in some way, etc. We could really ingest just about anything, but we call the stuff that's edible "food". Does that make it a social construct?

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[–] Taleya@aussie.zone -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

This is one of those gender vs sex dealies.

Food is not a social construct. But meals are.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee -2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

ruh roh what if sex is also a social construct

nah not going down that rabbit hole

(wonder why we chose to group biological factors XYZ to determine those classes instead of classes based on ABC tho...)

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

sex is also a social construct

Can we also at least stick our head down that rabbit hole? Because holy shit yes that nebulous hybrid of social convention and biological (on a species level) necessity is also where food fits.....

(I am referring of course to sex the act, not the synonym for gender...)

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

I was actually speaking about the biological classification "sex", not the act! I hadn't thought about the act as a social construct, but I guess it obviously is. I'm reminded of the old lesbian conundrum: "Was what we just did 'sex' or...?"