Problems with Identity

I've had ideas for this post for a long time, always floating in my thoughts. Usually being brought up by a certain article I read somewhere. What going to try to address is identity, or cultural identity. I could probably write a book on what identity is, but it's probably already been done, and lengthy definitions tend to aggravate me.

People are having trouble identifying themselves currently. Media is defining people, instead of people defining themselves. People are being defined in terms of other groups, Black vs. White, Man vs. Women, Gay vs. Straight.

If people just defined themselves as who they are, and didn't rely on other groups for identification, there would be a stronger sense of identity among people.

What I'm trying to get at, albeit roughly, is that it seems that everyone is defining their identity in terms of others. There's "Black" Americans defining part of who they are with the racism they experience from "White" Americans. Women defining themselves by the lack of masculine characteristics, and men the other way around.

I guess if people just started not caring as much about how other people define themselves and fit their definition to them, and take a break on political correctness, we'd have more meaningful groups, or at least those that do not feel threatened by the existence of others. In regards to political correctness, I mean that people should still take care not to offend people, but I'm still going to define myself as a man as being strong of constitution and will, and not care that others define themselves differently. This starts getting into the territory of "What is a Man?" on a societal scale, instead of just being a personal definition.

That was a rough snapshot.

And one reason why I like T-Nation, it's a good platform to reach men, and "Your crumbling Y Chromosome" was conveying the ideals of a strong man, something that tends to be avoided, or just not done.

Everything is too damn sweet

Almost every vegetable or fruit breeder out there is selecting for sweetness, since that's what the consumers want nowadays. We have “super sweet” sweet corn, sweet carrots, sweet cabbage, sweet broccoli, and sickly sweet fruit. There is also a selection for “milder” tasting fruits and vegetables, with carrots tasting less like carrots, and apples less like apples. To me, it seems every plant product is tending towards some form of sugar delivery system.

This irritates me, as I want to cook with “serious” vegetables. Carrots that with slap you in the face with their terpene content, and flavor the shit out of soups. I'm also looking for fruits that actually taste different from each other, in other words, fruits that have higher concentrations of phenolics, and aromatics. In the past years I've been enjoying “antique” apples, and eating many different kinds, since some have more spicy notes reminiscent of licorice, or more milder notes like bananas and strawberry.

Another thing that I've been thinking about, is that since many of the compounds that give fruits and vegetables their characteristic are actually there for defense against pathogens and herbivores, by selecting against these compounds, were actually selecting for plants that are essentially harder to grow. Instead of plants defending themselves against pathogens, we have to take the roll with insecticides and pesticides.

If we just bred plants for being what they are, and not focusing on making a bland, sweet consumable for the masses, we could enjoy more kinds of flavors in our foods, and grow them better.

Now I just need to get some of these heirlooms varieties and breed my own.