Of note is the monstrosities we call chickens today are a product of breeding contests in the 1940s [0] (but does that mean there is anything wrong with eating

Of note is the monstrosities we call chickens today are a product of breeding contests in the 1940s [0] (but does that mean there is anything wrong with eating them? who's to say). It seems a lot more people today are taking a critical look at what they eat, though often excluding broad categories based on feeling rather than hard science. At first this looks reactionary, but on closer inspection one realizes that the science involved is typically biased or just lacking. We've invested comparatively little into understanding the downsides of modern food products like vegetable oil, but the little windows we have indicate they may be causing whole hosts of human maladies from dementia to type 2 diabetes [1]. Nutrition constitutes the inputs to the complex biological system, and large changes (eg disease) can end up being the result of nonlinear processes started by changing these inputs. Another example is a lack of magnesium in the western diet, through both soil depletion and food processing, leading to large scale deficiencies [2]. What's really dizzying, though, is that this information isn't widely known, and is typically found through either self-directed study or through listening to podcasts. When the average person makes decisions regarding their nutrition, they're relying on outdated and probably harmful advice, despite intending to make "healthy" choices. Maybe we need an app to scan a barcode or read a list of ingredients and respond with the known potential for harm and confidence. All I know is I'll never look at fried chicken the same way again (unless it's fried in lard, of course). [0] https://livestock.extension.wisc.edu/articles/the-chicken-of-tomorrow/ https://livestock.extension.wisc.edu/articles/the-chicken-of... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190303234503id_/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b4ce/fae0475f0be1053c6abf0c47f485a22beddb.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190303234503id_/http://pdfs.se... [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11104-013-1781-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11104-013-1781-2