Friday High Five: Foodies, Technology and the Future

Has foodie culture gone too far?

Longstanding food critic John Lanchester has committed a professional sacrilege this week by suggesting that the foodie culture he owes a living is overinflated. He traces his own interest in food to that of his mother’s, as she embraced cooking as a form of self-invention – and suggests that same identity-bulding and related anxiety is at the heart of our current obsession with food. And he shares his suspicion of food consumption as a form of political action.

Gluten avoidance: a good idea or the latest fad?

Gluten-free products and diets have boomed in recent years. But is gluten a genuine food no-no (in excess, at least) or just the latest in a long line of foods we’ve been told to avoid, and later advised we can eat again? At the New Yorker, Michael Specter investigates. (And it looks like FODMAPs might be the next thing to avoid.)

Five Must-Read Books By Indigenous Authors

The final report into the federal curriculum suggests that too much weight is given to Indigenous writers and history in the subject of English. At the Guardian, book editor and lecturer Sandra Phillips disagrees, and offers a condensed book list of five must-read books by Indigenous authors.

Windowless planes on the horizon

The latest technological innovation to loom large in our future? Windowless planes. Don’t worry, they’re not actually open to the air … they might just look that way, as windows are replaced by giant OLED displays lining the inside of the plane’s fuselage. The screens could be used to display images of the exterior of the plane, as well as the kind of information that’s now projected onto small screens on the back of the seats.