Satsuma @Satsuma@cat.family

@gaditb @aschmitz @wallhackio @Lady i dont think those are burnt enough to contain no nutritional content even if they are arguably burnt enough to be rendered unpalatable

@aschmitz @Lady @gaditb @wallhackio foodstuffs is not necessarily synonymous with food

(and i was highlighting in that quote specifically the fact that its described as a thing which makes foods, which is unnecessarily circuitous if you consider it itself to food, thus implicitly indicating it is not one)

@gaditb @wallhackio @aschmitz @Lady i think this is a strong argument for cultural norms on something being non-food creating the experience of unpalatability, but i am not as confident in the reverse case, where unpalatability is the sole determiner of non-food-ness

like, i had a bad case of autistic texture issues as a kid, to the point where certain foods would make me gag which seems like the literal definition of unpalatable, but it never would have occurred to me to deem them non-food, merely inedible

i also feel like there are some interesting case studies to consider in the field of mushroom foraging but i am not knowledgeable enough to really speak to the norms there

@gaditb @wallhackio @Lady @aschmitz despite that, wikipedia does not describe flour as a food on its wikipedia page: «Flour is a powder used to make many different foods, including baked goods, as well as thickening dishes.»

@platypus have you read RE: Thesis defense issue? https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299630

@aschmitz @gaditb @wallhackio @Lady i guess this does also raise the related question about whether the kosher status of the thing in question makes it food / not food or merely permissible / impermissible food which i believe is a distinction made about different types of edible locusts

@rigormorphis the giant rams horn arm rests look sick as hell

@Lady @wallhackio @gaditb @aschmitz i mean i still think the key point is the cultural construction, but i think that safety is a driver for cultural constructions surrounding food

@wallhackio @gaditb @Lady @aschmitz because they eat chicken raw on purpose in japan, which doesn’t have salmonella and those two facts are generally considered related when explaining this to horrified americans who are quite sure raw chicken is Not A Food

@wallhackio @aschmitz @Lady @gaditb grasshoppers are ingredients

@wallhackio @aschmitz @gaditb @Lady i also think food is a social construct but i think one reason we construct things as ingredients and not foods is because there are requisite steps to render them safe and/or palatable and/or nutritionally bioavailable which are typically taken before consumption. in flours case it’s heavier on the palatable side of things than the safe of course—the fact that lots of people eat raw cookie dough is precisely why the CDC has a page explaining that raw flour is may contain e coli

but raw meat can be rendered into a food purely through the application of heat (though i also recommend adding seasonings. or at least salt)

@Lady @wallhackio @aschmitz @gaditb these holidays do not involve eating plain flour

@aschmitz @wallhackio @gaditb @Lady i think if a country has a named holiday for the first day that a food is available each year that involves people queuing outside the grocery store at seven in the morning and the whole stock selling out in under ten minutes we can, in fact, safely assume this is a semantically reasonable answer to “what is your favorite food” (cite: https://www.courthousenews.com/supply-of-smelly-fermenting-herring-not-meeting-swedish-demand/ )

@wallhackio @gaditb @Lady @aschmitz i think if it would be a borderline incoherent answer to the question of “what is your favorite food” that is because it is probably culturally in a different category (in milks case, that would be beverages and in flours case that would be ingredients)

@Lady @wallhackio @aschmitz first of all, most people generally only consider cooked milk safe to eat, its just that cooking milk is required by law and thus the presumed default while this is not the case for flour

@aschmitz @wallhackio @Lady «Flour doesn't look like a raw food, but most flour is raw. That means it hasn't been treated to kill germs that cause food poisoning, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Salmonella. These harmful germs can contaminate grain while it's still in the field or flour while it's being made.

Steps like grinding grain and bleaching flour don't kill harmful germs—and these germs can end up in flour or baking mixes you buy at the store. You can get sick if you eat unbaked dough or batter made with flour containing germs. Germs are killed only when flour is baked or cooked.»

@wallhackio @aschmitz sure i mean if you take flour & water and apply mechanical processing & heat you’ll get food but that’s just how ingredients work

@aschmitz @wallhackio hardtack is very specifically *not* flour it takes a lot of effort to turn flour into hardtack