Food Habits | Klas Thorsten Koesling | TEDxYouth@BerlinCosmopolitanSchool
The speaker argues that our food habits, which are deeply rooted in routine, can create limitations on our diets, but open-mindedness is necessary to embrace the variability of food by trying new cuisines across different cultures and ages. This is demonstrated through personal anecdotes of eating sticky rice in Thailand, Beijing duck in China, and asparagus in Germany.
## Speakers & Context
- Speaker's background: Born in Bangkok, mother's enemies, father's German; lived in Thailand, China, and currently in Germany.
- Purpose of talk: To share thoughts on food habits and open-mindedness.
- Core premise: The speaker's life in different countries helped develop an open mind regarding food.
## Theses & Positions
- Open-mindedness: The willingness to take in new viewpoints or preferences seriously.
- Habits: Old routines or behaviors repeated often, often without conscious thought.
- Conflict identified: Open-mindedness and habits seem to be in conflict regarding diet.
- Variability of food: Food habits are highly variable and change based on age, time, location, and religion.
- Core message: Overruling one's open-mindedness is crucial.
- Call to action: Be more open-minded, try new cuisines, and adapt more easily and quickly within different cultures or locations.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Open-mindedness:** The willingness to take in new viewpoints or preferences seriously.
- **Habit:** Old routines or behaviors that are repeated often and normally don't prompt thought when repeated.
- **Omnivore:** The biological design of humans to eat both animals and plants.
- **Junk food:** Processed foods, including burgers, fries, sweets, and cakes, which are easy to eat.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Evolutionary Dietary Change:** Human diet changes throughout life, moving from breast milk (infancy) to preferred easy-to-adjustable foods like noodles or meat burgers (youth), and towards less sugar and fat (elderly).
- **Cultural/Religious Restrictions:** Specific dietary rules exist, such as Muslim people eating *halal* food without pork, and Jewish people eating *kosher* food that also does not contain pork processed according to certain rituals.
- **Historical Shifts in Food Production:**
- **Stone Age (Nomads):** Ate what was easy to collect: eggs, nuts, berries, clam plants (like dandelions), fish, and hunted meat.
- **Medieval Period (Settled/Farmers):** Domesticated animals and grew crops, storing production as dried meats, vegetables, cereal, or cheese.
- **Modern Era (Large Cities/Factories):** Food production is concentrated in big farms, with processed food supplied by big factories (burgers, fries, sweets, cakes).
- **Impact of Modern Food:** Current bad food habits are linked to processed foods, suggesting a potential future where people might avoid these processed items.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **Infancy:** Breastfed.
- **Youth:** Prefer easy-to-adjustable food like noodles or meat burgers.
- **Elderly:** Prefer less sugar and fat in diets.
- **Stone Age (Nomads):** Ate wild edibles (eggs, nuts, berries, etc.) while moving.
- **Medieval Period (Farmers):** Sedentary lifestyle, domestication of animals/crops.
- **Modern Period (Cities):** Reliance on processed food supplied by large factories.
## Named Entities
- Bangkok — Location of speaker's birth.
- Germany — Location of speaker's current residence.
- China — Location where speaker lived and ate Beijing duck.
## Numbers & Data
- Comparison of food collection range: Stone Age nomads ate over a variety of items, while modern city dwellers rely on factory-processed goods.
- Comparative contrast in food production scale: Stone Age nomads versus large-scale factory food production.
## Examples & Cases
- **Dietary contrast:** Sticky rice and mangos in Thailand; Beijing duck, dumplings, and buns in China; asparagus with ham, butter, and potatoes in Germany.
- **Processed food examples:** Burgers, fries, sweets, and cakes.
- **Biological example:** The variability of human diet based on age and culture (e.g., *halal* vs. *kosher*).
## Tools, Tech & Products
- No specific tools, technology, or products were discussed beyond generalized food types (burgers, fries, etc.).
## References Cited
- **Biologists:** Cited for statements on human diet and omnivore status.
- **UN:** Cited in relation to studying human food habits.
- **Historians:** Credited with discovering the dietary history, particularly concerning the role of processed food and the Stone Age.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- The speaker acknowledges that the process of developing open-mindedness is a life process, not a single fixed event.
- The speaker notes that the concept of "bad food habits" is relative and linked to industrial food production.
## Methodology
- Ethnographic observation based on the speaker's life experience living in multiple countries.
- Historical review comparing Stone Age, Medieval, and modern dietary patterns.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- The speaker concludes that food we eat daily reflects our habits, which can limit our diets.
- The variability of food is immense and dependent on age, time, location, and religion.
- Recommendation: Be more open-minded, try new cuisines, and adapt quickly within new cultures or locations.
## Implications & Consequences
- Failing to maintain open-mindedness could trap people in poor dietary habits, leading to a future resembling "walking burgers or walking candy."
- Open-mindedness is presented as a necessary mechanism to adapt to the inherent variability of human sustenance.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"I can define open-mindedness as the willingness to take in new viewpoints or preference seriously."*
- *"both open-mindedness and habits seem in the way in conflict."*
- *"I ate lots of mangos with sticky rice in Thailand"*
- *"I love eating the Beijing duck dumplings and buns"*
- *"I got to learn about my new favorite asparagus with ham, butter and potatoes"*
- *"the eighteenth miles a day instead of three another 500 years later"*
- *"we call junk food and today we develop such bad food habits"*
- *"I plead to all of you is let's be more open-minded try new cuisines and adapting ourselves easier and quicker within different cultures or locations"*