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Food for Thinkers: The Ideal Shape of Chewing Gum (and Other, Similar Concerns)

Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful podcast, details the hyper-functional concerns of the eating obsessed.


Dan Pashman, cohost of The Sporkful podcast, cuts to the Food for Thinkers chase. Why does food matter to him? Simple:

FACT: Food is necessary to sustain human life.

That's pretty much it. [...] The experience of eating is, in fact, universal, even more so than classic human touchstones such as reproducing, paying taxes, fearing death, and watching The Real Housewives.


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But Pashman does draw an interesting distinction between the functional concerns of the eating obsessed, as opposed to those who are merely obsessed with food:

Instead of just focusing on ingredients and recipes, you're thinking about the structural integrity of your sandwich, your strategy at a buffet, and the surface-area-to-volume ratio of your french fries.

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These topics, and many more along the same lines (the most satisfying ingredient ratio in snack mix, say, or the ideal shape of chewing gum, both with and without a liquid center), are addressed each week on The Sporkful, so if you're an eater as opposed to—or as well as—a foodie, tune in!

Food for Thinkers is a week-long, distributed, online conversation looking at food writing from as wide and unusual a variety of perspectives as possible. Between January 18 and January 23, 2011, more than 40 food and non-food writers will respond to a question posed by GOOD's newly-launched Food hub: What does—or could, or even should—it mean to write about food today?

Follow the conversation all week here at GOOD, join in the comments, and use the Twitter hashtag #foodforthinkers to keep up to date.


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