It’s super quick to absorb.
Cheaply available.
It bares little resemblance to its source.
Its ingredients can come from anywhere.
The growers are anonymous.
Put together using processes you don’t understand.
It is optimised for what you crave rather than what you need.
And like other ultra-processed things:
It doesn’t quench your hunger.
It’s addictive.
Easy to binge on.
But can be strangely unsatisfying.
But we don’t just think with our heads — we think with our whole bodies.
We process information by moving through the world, interacting with the environment, relating to other people, remembering through different neural centres in the body. Thinking has physical and emotional dimensions alongside the cognitive that are part of how we have evolved to make sense of the world.
When we are more active seekers of information rather than passive consumers:
- We have to seek out what we need, creating relationships with sources, with people, with places.
- The process takes time, which gives us time to think.
- We give the opportunity for our full range of bodily thinking circuits to participate.
- The inputs require chewing on, and this gives us time to discern what need.
The process is slower but the outcome is more nourishing.
