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The Audio Long Read

How we lost our sensory connection with food – and how to restore it

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.32.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To eat in the modern world is often to eat in a state of profound sensory disengagement. It shouldn’t have to be this way. By Bee Wilson. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the Guardian.

0:10.8

Hi, my name is Hannah Frankson. I'm a peloton instructor and I teach classes on the peloton bite and the peloton tread.

0:17.1

Nothing motivates me more than the thought of enjoying life to the fullest.

0:21.8

Life is always full with so many different challenges and chapters.

0:25.6

For me movement and exercise has been there throughout every stage of my life. Just living life to the max is what motivates me.

0:32.5

The Guardian loves has partnered with peloton to help you find motivation that moves you.

0:36.6

To find out more visit thegardian.com forward slash motivation with peloton.

0:40.8

This message was paid for by peloton.

0:48.2

Welcome to the Guardian Long Read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.

0:54.6

For the text version of this and all our long reads go to thegardian.com forward slash long read.

1:03.3

How we lost our sensory connection with food and how to restore it by B Wilson,

1:08.9

read by Lucy Scott and produced by Jessica Beck.

1:12.6

The executive producer is Max Sanderson.

1:16.6

This is going to sound weird, but I want you to look closely for a moment at your thumbs.

1:22.6

See how they flex forwards as well as back. Notice how responsive and grippy the skin is.

1:29.5

The human thumb is not just a device for giving the thumbs up sign or for picking up dropped keys.

1:35.2

It is also one of the most efficient and sensitive tools in existence for determining the ripeness of fruit.

1:43.2

One of the hallmarks of being a hominid is having opposable thumbs.

1:47.9

Stronger, longer and more flexible than the thumbless hands of a spider monkey or the non-opposable thumbs of a mama set.

1:55.8

These opposable thumbs are a trait that humans share with our primate cousins such as chimpanzees.

2:02.1

But it has only recently been discovered that our thumbs might have first evolved as a device for measuring whether or not fruit was ripe.

2:10.6

In 2016, biologist Nathaniel Dominie studied the way chimpanzees pick figs.

...

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