How not to be scared of food

Krish Ashok on Instagram: “HOW TO BE LESS SCARED OF FOOD A significant amount of food content on social media is scaremongering about specific ingredients, techniques, appliances or cookware, and surprise surprise, most of these are relatively newer, more modern items that did not exist a couple of decades back. Microwaves, Air fryers, Processed food, Preservatives, non-stick etc. So, rather than individually try and debunk fears about modern food, I think it’s important that you as an informed consumer have a toolkit to detect BS (with the full hope that you will apply it equally to everything you read on social media, including my own content) The 2 most common cognitive fallacies are Availability Heuristic - If I happen to read something, it must be important, or at least more important than alternative solutions not as readily recalled or available. Common eg - There is more cancer nowadays than in the past. This ignores the fact that most people didn’t live long enough to get cancer. It also ignores the fact that we now do way more diagnosis and also ignores the fact that you are far more likely to hear about someone’s cancer than ever before because social media inherently rewards bad news. KEY TAKEAWAY: Ask whether we simply know more about some danger than assume that there is objectively more danger Linear No-Threshold Fallacy - This fallacy presumes that harmful chemicals are harmful at every level other than zero concentration. Not true because our body is constantly working to remove toxins all the time from all the food we eat. The truth is - THE DOSE MAKES THE POISON. Most things are safe up to a certain dose, and most things are poisonous beyond that (even things like salt or water, for that matter) KEY TAKEAWAY: Always ask - what toxin, how much as a % of diet, what is a harmful dose? #food #foodscience #science #scicomm #mythbusters #pseudoscience #cognitive #reason #reels #reelsofinstagram #reelkarofeelkaro”