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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Food Groups

We're all familiar with the usual food groups:
Caffeine,
Cholesterol,
Fat,
Sugar,
Alcohol, and
Chocolate.

But this is not enough to cover all important foods humans eat. I propose several additional food groups, the Florescent foods group, Cold food and the Flat foods. Examples of florescent food include Trix and the multiple-flavored Twizzlers I met yesterday (Blueberry! Strawberry ummm!). Flat food includes pizza and fruit by the foot.

The original op-art movement was really about food diversity. Similarly, the Flat Earth Society was originally an advocacy organization comprised of manufacturers of flat foods like nan, pita bread, flat noodles and sole before getting distracted with the more pressing mission (pun intended) of developing educational materials about geology and the Earth.

The flat food group contains some unusual members. Consider ice cream, which could have belonged to the cholesterol or fat or sugar groups, but instead belongs to the cold food group. But what happens when ice cream melts? If it is in a bowl, not much. But, if you leave the ice cream on a plate or lying out on the counter, then after the ice cream melts, it is no longer cold. Further, it is flat! Melted ice cream belongs to the flat food group!

There are other food groups, you are encouraged to add them to the comments along with examples of those foods.

Acknowledgements: to my colleague Mas for alerting me to the florescent food group.

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