Heroes

3 vile myths too many food companies are shoving down our throats. Gross.

You've probably seen ads from food corporations like this before. But do you have any idea what they're really trying to sell you on?

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Only Organic - New MacDonald - Q2 2015
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A growing number of food corporations are spending big bucks to pump out messaging that suggests they're worried about the health of our planet and that we need their help and the help of chemicals to produce the food to sustain it.

Myth #1: We need technology like genetic engineering and pesticides to grow more food.

While using technology to help grow and engineer food sounds like a good idea, the reality is much much worse.

"Getting on board means farmers stop practices that keep soil healthy and go for single crops. Livestock that used to be raised on the farm get crammed into polluting factories. To keep this unnatural system going, these farmers now buy expensive inputs all from ever-fewer corporations demanding ever-rising prices. ... Pests become resistant, so you've got to use more chemicals. Livestock becomes sicker, so you've got to use more drugs. Soil loses its natural fertility, so you've got to use more chemical fertilizer.
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And the future we're all talking about feeding? The industrial farm requires more fossil fuels, water, and mined minerals. All stuff that will only get more expensive as it runs out. So down the line, the chemical path not only can't only work for farmers, it won't be a choice at all. Corporate agriculture doesn't reliably grow more food in the future or even today."



Myth #2 : Food corporations are working hand in hand with farmers.


"Over the last 50 years millions of farmers have had to sign corporate contracts that dictate their every move or have lost their farms all together."

Many of these corporations want you to believe they're working with farmers to help them sustain healthy family businesses. In reality, farmers and their families are being bullied to buy into corporate-controlled chemical agriculture. Because these corporations have lots of money and government backing on their side, most farmers don't have a choice. They can either play ball, or their farm will fail.

Myth #3: We need to double food production in order to feed the planet by 2050.

Some mega-corporations would like you to believe that without their help and reliance on chemical engineering, our planet is doomed. But that's not actually the truth.

"The sustainable farm is better for farmers and the environment, but can it really feed the world? Study after study is saying yes. Sustainable farms produce as well and, in drought years, even better. This is important news for small farmers, who already grow 70% of the world's food. To increase production, they don't have to follow the chemical path."

It's time we wise up and stop letting these shady corporations scare us into thinking it's their way or no way at all. The truth is, we can feed and sustain our planet without using harmful chemicals or stiffing small farmers and their families.

Joy

Jimmy Fallon had people share their worst car stories and they are hilariously relatable

Whatever gets us from A to B, right?

That first car is a rite of passage into adulthood. Specifically, the hard-earned lesson of expectations versus reality. Though some of us are blessed with Teslas at 17, most teenagers receive a car that’s been … let’s say previously loved. And that’s probably a good thing, considering nearly half of first-year drivers end up in wrecks. Might as well get the dings on the lemon, right?

Of course, wrecks aside, buying a used car might end up costing more in the long run after needing repairs, breaking down and just a general slew of unexpected surprises. But hey, at least we can all look back and laugh.

My first car, for example, was a hand-me-down Toyota of some sort from my mother. I don’t recall the specific model, but I definitely remember getting into a fender bender within the first week of having it. She had forgotten to get the brakes fixed … isn’t that a fun story?

Jimmy Fallon recently asked his “Tonight Show” audience on Twitter to share their own worst car experiences. Some of them make my brake fiasco look like cakewalk (or cakedrive, in this case). Either way, these responses might make us all feel a little less alone. Or at the very least, give us a chuckle.

Here are 22 responses with the most horsepower:

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Joy

Man uses TikTok to offer 'dinner with dad' to any kid that needs one, even adult ones

Summer Clayton is the father of 2.4 million kids and he couldn’t be more proud.

TikTok

Come for the food, stay for the wholesomeness.

Summer Clayton is the father of 2.4 million kids and he couldn’t be more proud. His TikTok channel is dedicated to giving people intimate conversations they might long to have with their own father, but can’t. The most popular is his “Dinner With Dad” segment.

The concept is simple: Clayton, aka Dad, always sets down two plates of food. He always tells you what’s for dinner. He always blesses the food. He always checks in with how you’re doing.

I stress the stability here, because as someone who grew up with a less-than-stable relationship with their parents, it stood out immediately. I found myself breathing a sigh of relief at Clayton’s consistency. I also noticed the immediate emotional connection created just by being asked, “How was your day?” According to relationship coach and couples counselor Don Olund, these two elements—stability and connection—are fundamental cravings that children have of their parents. Perhaps we never really stop needing it from them.


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Pop Culture

Dad's TikTok for son showing what his 80s childhood was like is total Gen X nostalgia

@shadyraro/TikTok

TikTok about '80s childhood is a total Gen X flashback.

As a Gen X parent, it's weird to try to describe my childhood to my kids. We're the generation that didn't grow up with the internet or cell phones, yet are raising kids who have never known a world without them. That difference alone is enough to make our 1980s childhoods feel like a completely different planet, but there are other differences too that often get overlooked.

How do you explain the transition from the brown and orange aesthetic of the '70s to the dusty rose and forest green carpeting of the '80s if you didn't experience it? When I tell my kids there were smoking sections in restaurants and airplanes and ashtrays everywhere, they look horrified (and rightfully so—what were we thinking?!). The fact that we went places with our friends with no quick way to get ahold of our parents? Unbelievable.

One day I described the process of listening to the radio, waiting for my favorite song to come on so I could record it on my tape recorder, and how mad I would get when the deejay talked through the intro of the song until the lyrics started. My Spotify-spoiled kids didn't even understand half of the words I said.

And '80s hair? With the feathered bangs and the terrible perms and the crunchy hair spray? What, why and how?

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