Immunity Cubes and Bad Sugar 🍭

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October 14, 2024

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Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with mushroom cosplayers, immunity cubes, Korean cooks with bizarre names, and a Nobel Prize winner

The next thread will be about sugar

Hi there!

I’m a little early today, hope you don’t mind.

I have to take a big life decision: keep up with - you know - family and my day job, or just sit watching the latest Made in Korea media obsession, Culinary Class Wars. This is the Netflix’s most-watched non-English show globally for the past two weeks.

I mean, it’s a crazy gig with food, Squid Game atmospheres, people called Napoli Mafia, and even someone wearing a bird’s mask.

The Italian subtitles seem written by severely altered people (in a fun way), and I hope they won’t change until I watch the whole show.

Piero

PS: following last week’s poll I made fonts smaller. You’ll find a new poll at the end of the newsletter, I’d love you could answer that, and help me with the new design. I know we’re not there yet.

ONE ✤ QUOTE

✦ Han Kang, Nobel Prize in Literature 2024. Quote from The Vegetarian, a powerful novel.

THE OTHER REASON WHY SUGAR MIGHT BE BAD FOR US

Evil, evil sugar; but in fancy colors.

While many people are rightly concerned about animal welfare on farms, there's often a blind spot regarding the hidden human costs of plant-based foods. We're quick to decry the treatment of chickens or cows, but how many of us stop to think about the people toiling in fields to produce our fruits and veggies? The reality is that exploitative labor practices are rampant in agriculture worldwide, affecting millions of vulnerable workers, as this New York Times report shows.

Take sugar production in India, for instance. Behind that sweet taste lurks a bitter truth: women working in sugar cane fields often face slave-like conditions. They endure backbreaking labor, meager pay, and exposure to harmful pesticides, all while major corporations like Coca-Cola profit from their toil. It's a stark reminder that "cruelty-free" isn't just about animals - it's about people too. As consumers, we should force ourselves to open our eyes to these hidden costs and demand transparency and fair practices across the entire food industry, from farm to table.

PS: A Pinch of This Transforms Soups, Sauces, and Savory Dishes

Picture: J Yeo

A MESSAGE FROM…*

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Anorexia and Autonomy
Rachel Fraser / The Point Mag

This one is hard, but really deep. “Anorexia is readily conceptualized as an autonomy deficit. We like to imagine the anorexic as a hostage, seized by patriarchal culture, hijacked by unrealistic beauty ideals”. But the author writes “what I needed was not more autonomy—more separateness—but less”.

Why So Many Chefs Don’t Want Restaurants Anymore
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Legendary Frank Bruni explains why restaurants are becoming harder and more expensive to run, while other food-related careers offer more money, better work-life balance, and easier paths to success. Alternative paths include consulting, sponsorships, educational projects, cookbooks, meal delivery services, and social media content creation.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was 19 Fall Soups to Keep You Cozy. And that's all for today.

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