on storytelling and the status quo

#5SmartReads - December 17, 2024

#5SmartReads is a Webby-honored weekly news digest that amplifies underreported news and underrepresented perspectives. My goal is to help you stay informed without being overwhelmed, and to embrace nuance and reflection over picking a side.

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American government built the meat industry. Now can it build a better food system? (Vox)

If there’s a platform that I would champion to the ends of the earth, it would be “making nuance great again.”

Aggressive polarization and oversimplification is tearing us apart, and food is one area where the necessary nuance is silenced by under-informed activists and ludicrously wealthy lobbyists + industry groups.

If we are serious about making America healthier again, we need to have a nuanced conversation about food - what we consume, how we consume it, where it comes from and how it’s funded. This Vox piece does a brilliant job of explaining all of these factors, with a focus on the plant-based alternatives to the highest emissions producers in our food system.

This article focuses on what can be done at the macro level, and how the food industry and government can work together to get us on a healthier track.

I want to offer up some suggestions on how we boost our protein in a mostly vegetarian home, without sacrificing satiety and flavor:

• we opt for plant-based meats 3 times a week to help boost our protein intake. Abbott’s plant based chicken is our favorite for skillets (made with a grain, a ton of vegetables, and whatever sauce we’re feeling in the moment). I use Beyond Meat’s ground and sausage for hearty pasta, and make Juicy Lucy burgers with their patties (BM is also a delightful follow on Threads). Impossible’s nuggets are a frequent addition to my kids’ dinner (I always make a few for myself, to dip in some honey mustard). The rest of the time, we opt for chickpeas, tofu, or soybeans in our meals.

• I blend cottage cheese in virtually any dish that features a sauce, and in many of my kids’ favorites (mac & cheese, scrambled eggs, as a spread on their quesadillas).

• I’m a big fan of frozen vegetables to speed up dinner prep and add fiber to our meals, and use a bag with any given meal. I thaw them in the microwave and drain the excess water before adding to whatever I’m cooking.

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The World's Best Athletes Tell Her Everything (Esquire)

I’ve been studying interviewers for the past couple of months (for a very exciting project). Taylor Rooks is, by far, one of my favorites.

And it’s not just because she’s friends with Saquon Barkley off the field. But her conversation with him is a solid example of why athletes want to sit down with her for an interview.

There’s something about Rooks that makes the person she’s interviewing feel comfortable, and I would gather they feel safe with her unlike most interviewers. Her humor and warmth shines, but so does her encyclopedic knowledge about the athlete and the sport they play.

I’m taking the following advice from Rooks:

• rewatch my old interviews with a critical eye, and practice my weaknesses (even if it means I record my regular Zoom meetings and look for areas to improve on).

• in research prep, look for common passions and interests between myself and who I’m interviewing, and build a genuine connection from there.

• be relentlessly curious - look for what folks haven’t shared in interviews, and create a safe space for them to open up to you with trust.

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#5SmartReads is all about helping you feel smarter this week.

If you want to feel better but feel overwhelmed on what to do, check out this month’s plan (mindfulness practices, workouts, meals, and more):

the plan - december 2024

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A letter to my kids about last week (Second Opinion)

There is justified outrage towards the American healthcare system, which has never been a proper system at all.

But that hasn’t stopped millions of us from rolling up our sleeves to do what we can to help people live healthier lives, from delivering healthcare to developing new medicines to overseeing the facilities that deliver care.

It is grueling, unforgiving work that’s only being more and more attacked (some attacks are fair, others are rooted in viral misinformation). And I’ve struggled to find the words in the weeks since Brian Thompson’s murder (the Internet’s reaction to it all is another subject entirely).

Christina Farr - a healthcare journalist and investor that I deeply respect - summed up my feelings in this beautiful piece, and it perfectly captures how I feel about the work we do and where we go from here. It’s one I hope everyone takes the time to read, if only to understand why we choose to go into this field, and why we choose to stay.

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With One Foot in Christmas Past and One in Christmas Future, the Hallmark Movie Enters a New(ish) Era (Vanity Fair)

My favorite Christmas tradition happens over the days my parents spend with us before the holiday. We curl up on the couch and watch a Hallmark Christmas movie every night. At the end of every movie, my dad stands up with a grin on his face and says “cheesy movie!”

There’s a film for each of us. My husband loves the time travel ones (Round and Round, A Biltmore Christmas, Next Stop, Christmas). My mother loved Christmas with the Singhs. The boys have joined in this tradition and declared Three Wise Men and a Baby (and the sequel, Three Wiser Men and a Boy) as their favorite. My dad and I love them all, but are partial to ones based in Scotland for some inexplicable reason. And Hallmark’s ensemble Christmas show, Holidazed, is truly perfect.

The boys have joined this tradition, and it makes me so happy to spend our evenings this way. This year’s favorites have been Christmas with the Singhs and Three Wiser Men and a Boy, and I have Holiday Touchdown downloaded on my iPad to watch over our trip.

I really value Hallmark’s shift from fairly vanilla films to showcasing diverse stories with compassion and authenticity, which has only been better for business. Hallmark Channel is the most-watched cable entertainment network for years, and their 2021 season saw 80 million people watching at least one movie that year.

It’s tragic to see networks and streamers pull back from diverse stories (I’m still bitter about The Acolyte not being renewed and Ms. Marvel seemingly a one-season wonder), which makes Hallmark’s programming a bigger draw for me. I want stories and characters that reflect our world, and they’ve been consistently delivering over the past few years - and I hope it continues through this next administration.

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The Technology That Actually Runs Our World (The Atlantic)
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Does anyone else feel like technology has made them dumber or more boring?

I do. And it’s not me - or you. And it’s not a new phenomenon - Aldous Huxley wroet about the unsatisfying state of culture in the early 1920s (demand was high, and it was easier to mass produce the content people were clamoring for).

We’re re-living that same cycle - though this time, algorithms (and how we engage with them) is the key driver in what we find ourselves numbly scrolling through, listening to, or watching.

And algorithms go much deeper than in how we spend our leisure time. They dictate everything, from how much we pay for our essentials, how much our ride share costs, or if a medical procedure will get automatically covered. What’s meant to minimize human-led bias is prioritizing profit over societal benefit, which further grows the inequality we see today.

So what can we do?

“It’s not that we should all learn to stop worrying and to love the algorithmic-recommendation engine, but this consistent harping on how boring everything has become does distract us from the larger issues. Some technologies really are eroding the viability of public pursuits, and perhaps enjoying or criticizing cultural works based on their merits could help us focus our attention a bit. Asking yourself whether you like something because you actually enjoy it can help slough off the feeling of ambient dread that some critics have called “algorithmic anxiety.””