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Department of Food Science and Technology

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Social Media, Food Science and Me

June 10, 2016

By: Alex Pierce, FST PhD student

Social media can be our best friend or our worst foe.  As many people know social media circulates large amounts of information. We spread any fleeting, unheeding thoughts we may have during the day, reaching people across the globe. “Alex is currently eating a bagel”…  The beauty and potentially the beast of these platforms is their lack of filtration.

Of course freedom of speech is our right, but this also means that what is read on the Internet and social media platforms should be read critically and perhaps be taken with a grain of salt, or in some situations a bag of Himalayan pink salt. For example, social media posts regarding ‘chemicals’ in our food stating chemicals should be kept out of all of our food may not be based on the facts.  There is also a concept gaining popularity that says if you cannot pronounce an ingredient then you should not eat it. These headlines are easy to latch onto, but the concepts are very complicated.  They can contain truth but also more than likely some falsehood—so I want to back up and break some of these circulating ideas down. Click here to read full blog post.