Food: yum! It keeps us alive and keeps our brains healthy (or unhealthy, all-too-often). And the food that we eat - what it is and where it comes from - is one of the most important things we're going to have to get right when it comes to climate change.
Kind of a problem then that there are very few things about which we're quite so uppity and strange. Food is drenched in cultural meaning, status, and individuals' neuroses, associations and family history.
So what is our psychological relationship with food? And what do those trying to get people to eat more climate-friendly diets need to take on board?
Joining Dave on this first episode of Your Brain On Climate is Kimberley Wilson - a chartered psychologist, nutritionist and author on all things to do with food, health, lifestyle and society. She was also once a finalist on the Great British Bake-Off, but Dave has the grace not to ask her about that. You can read much more about Kimberley and her work at http://www.kimberleywilson.co
Extra reading as highlighted by the owl noises:
- 07:30 - Effects of nutritional supplements on aggression, rule-breaking, and psychopathology among young adult prisoners, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20014286/
- 10:12 - Antecedents, Behaviour, Consequences: A nice intro document here: https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/11951/behaviour-observation-sheets.pdf
Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency. Contact the show: @brainclimate on Twitter, or
[email protected].
The show is hosted by Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter. All music throughout the show and audio production is by Dave, because he's far too much of a control freak to let anyone else loose on it.
Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://www.designbymondial.com.