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JulyDiaz

Episode 175 - Commonplace Ideas Invented More Recently Than You Think

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Nowadays, there's a huge emphasis on eating natural foods. Staying away from GMOs, pesticides, and processed sugars is generally thought of as a good thing. Some call it the paleo diet and it's a way to harken back to a simpler time, when our ancestors ate gathered fruits and hunted animals.

 

Going paleo is very noble and all, but the problem is: the plants and animals we eat are nothing like they were thousands of years ago, let a hundred years ago. Before test tubes were ever a part of the equation, we selectively bred everything from cows and chickens to apples and bananas. You'd barf in your mouth just looking at an OG banana, let alone trying to eat it. And cows? They were bred from their ancestors, cattle-like animals called aurochs, who would fuck you up if you tried milking them.

 

The food we eat today and think of as normal is just one example of a historical blindspot we have where we think commonplace objects and concepts have been around forever. But in this week's episode, Jack O'Brien is joined by Michael Swaim and Teresa Lee to discuss how things like food, love, racism and mourning dead children are all surprisingly recent developments.

 

Footnotes:

 

Article: Cracked: 7 Concepts We Totally Take For Granted, Like White People: https://goo.gl/dVJVIL

 

Article: Cracked: 6 Man-Made Things You Totally Thought Were Natural: https://goo.gl/QvjHtN

 

Article: Cracked: 5 Simple Things You Won't Believe Are Recent Inventions: https://goo.gl/NzAfxQ

 

Article: Seeker: Cows Almost Impossible to Domesticate, DNA Reveals: https://goo.gl/w6Uai1

 

Article: Pacific Standard: How Lobster Got Fancy: https://goo.gl/qa1LaL

 

Article: Gawker: 'Breathtaking' Document Reveals Pepsi's Logo is Pinnacle of Entire Universe: https://goo.gl/9tYW

 

Article: Time: The Invention of Teenagers: https://goo.gl/gWgJDs

 

Article: The New York Times: Who's White?: https://goo.gl/fAzpSE

 

Podcast: Duke University Center for Documentary Studies: Seeing White: https://goo.gl/6fWI65

 

Text: Ralph Waldo Emerson: English Traits: https://goo.gl/LBPZFQ

 

Article: The Atlantic: Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist: https://goo.gl/F9McpQ

 

Scholarly Article: Did The Ancients Care When Their Children Died?: https://goo.gl/ozHK5a

 

 

The Romantic Love Test: https://goo.gl/ITk7yA

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