food processing

Joseph Everett compares the food environment of the US, with roughly 30% obesity, to Japan's, around 3.5%. He argues that what is available and normal to eat explains much of the gap.

A Kurzgesagt explainer asking whether organic food is really healthier or better for the environment. It defines what organic means and looks at pesticide use, nutrition and environmental impact, with sources.

A four-minute Not Just Bikes comparison of grocery shopping in Amsterdam versus car-centric North America, arguing that frequent small fresh-food trips beat bulk shopping. It ties this to land use and reduced food waste.

A Kurzgesagt video on the conditions in which most farm animals are raised. It argues that cruelty is for cheaper rather than better meat, and that a small price increase per meal could avoid most of the suffering.

Veritasium examines whether food has become less nutritious, weighing soil depletion, selective breeding and rising atmospheric CO2. It evidences nutrient decline even in weeds over a century and ties it to faster plant growth.

Adam Ragusea examines whether olive oil is unsafe for high-heat cooking and whether it tastes bad when heated. He cites studies showing it is among the most stable cooking oils and that smoke-point worries are overblown.

A What I've Learned video arguing that industrial seed and vegetable oils have displaced saturated fats and harmed health. It covers the history of vegetable oils, the American Heart Association's role, and rising consumption.

Technology Connections explains why the superheterodyne radio has its name and how mixing frequencies lets it tune stations well. It walks through the underlying wave phenomena and algebra and why the design solved a hard tuning problem.

A Kurzgesagt animated explainer on the climate and environmental cost of meat. It covers how beef drives deforestation and emissions, and how this compares with plant-based foods.

Casey Neistat's short New York Times op-doc investigating how accurate restaurant and packaged-food calorie labels really are. He gets items from chains like Chipotle, Starbucks and Subway measured by nutrition researchers and compares them to the printed numbers.

3Blue1Brown's animated visual introduction to the Fourier Transform, showing how a signal breaks into frequency components.

Reducible's visual walkthrough of the Fast Fourier Transform, motivated by polynomial multiplication. It shows how the FFT's key ideas can be discovered by asking the right questions.

3Blue1Brown shows how the uncertainty principle arises from Fourier transforms. A wave packet cannot be narrow in both position and frequency, so the principle is a property of waves rather than of measurement.

MinutePhysics explains that computers store brightness nonlinearly, so blurring and blending colors in raw RGB gives wrong, dark results. It shows why mixed colors, such as in gradients, look off.

Adam Ragusea explores why Hershey's chocolate tastes the way it does to many non-Americans, tracing it to butyric acid and Hershey's history, and why familiarity makes Americans love it. He compares it with British Cadbury.

Veritasium tells the story of the Fast Fourier Transform, from its use in detecting nuclear tests to Cold War politics, and how it could have changed the arms race. It includes a short, intuitive explanation of what the Fourier transform does.

ACS Reactions investigates why Mexican Coke, supposedly cane sugar sweetened, tested as having glucose and fructose, explaining that sucrose breaks down in acidic soda.

Andong examines the popular story that Norway invented salmon sushi in Japan in the 1990s. He argues it is largely a myth, pointing to earlier evidence of raw salmon eaten in Japan and elsewhere.

Technology Connections examines an old feature-rich microwave and shows how it uses a humidity or steam sensor and lookup data to cook food well, arguing it beats many modern ones.

Food YouTuber Adam Ragusea argues that gas stovetops are weaker than electric burners, dirty to clean, and a health risk from indoor air pollution. He cites Consumer Reports ratings and a literature review on gas stove health effects.

A short Harvard animation narrated by Professor Rob Lue introducing mitochondria as the cell's powerhouses and how cells turn food and oxygen into energy.

A short Techquickie explainer on why laptop webcams are much worse than phone cameras. It covers sensor size, image processing, and the interface differences between laptops and phones, with input from a Logitech engineer.

Technology Connections takes apart the step-by-step electromechanical logic of a 1970s pinball machine. He shows how relays, steppers and switches track state and score without electronics.

Veritasium visits Richard Lenski's lab to explain the decades-long E. coli evolution experiment, which asks how repeatable evolution is and shows bacteria evolving to use a new food source.