nutrition in modern life

how trends like "dinosaur time" and "people kibble" expose our complex relationship with food

Hi Noosers! Anne & Avery, here. Our view on health is simple: small daily actions add up. The basics are the priority: real food, movement you enjoy, and habits that support you. Anne (Registered Dietitian) and Avery (Health Coach) write Monday Noosletters based on research and our experiences — because at the end of the day, we all want to know what everyone else is doing, perhaps due to our innate curiosity around human behavior. We are mothers, friends, and athletes who want to share our knowledge and empower our readers to take their health into their own hands. Every first Monday of the month is free, but if you’d like to upgrade to a paid subscription to receive weekly Noosletters, we’d be thrilled!

Happy Cinco De Mayo, Noosers! This is the first Monday of the month, so today’s Noosletter is a freebie! We are pumped that farm stands and farmers markets are starting to open, and that fresh, local produce is in our future! We realize that few may be as excited about fresh vegetables as we are, which makes today’s Noosletter theme so timely. What better time than now to address the TikTok trends like “dinosaur time” and “people kibble?!” While these trends encourage more vegetable consumption (yay!), they point to a larger conversation worth having about how we approach nutrition in modern life and what they reveal about our relationship with food. Read along and let us know what you think in the comments, we love to hear from you!

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We thought we’d invite you into a conversation we had with each other this week. We have many phone conversations about Noos themes throughout the week, and if you could see the amount of scribbled Post-It notes in my car, you might appreciate this attempt at getting our thoughts on paper. We did our best to recreate our thoughts and conversations in today’s essay. We hope you enjoy!

Anne: When I opened up my weekly Nutrition and Dietetics Smartbrief, I saw an article highlighting the latest TikTok trend called "Dinosaur Time." I was intrigued. I am not on TikTok, so maybe, for some of you this is old news. I was a little (or a lot!) skeptical before viewing the video, especially after reading in the summary that the girl who started it encourages people to “consume handfuls of leafy greens like kale and spinach directly from the bag to increase nutrient intake with minimal effort.” After watching the video my first thought was “what is going on?!” I work daily with patients to try and increase their consumption of whole foods including vegetables and this “method” had never crossed my mind. And why would it — it’s so barbaric! I immediately sent it to Avery and wrote, is this what nutrition in modern life looks like? I felt discouraged as it highlights the not-so-stellar relationship we have with food.

Avery: When Anne sent me the link, I wasn’t exactly surprised — there are so many trends that sweep the internet to make healthy eating easier, so I guess eating like a dinosaur tracks. It made me think of the scene from “A Christmas Story,” when little Randy doesn’t want to eat his dinner, and the mom so cleverly invites him to “show me how the piggies eat!” With a grin, Randy gobbles up his once unappetizing meatloaf!

Last week we wrote about having childlike curiosity, so maaaaybe this is in the same idea? Maybe if we make consuming veggies fun and easy (no prep, no dressing, just hunched with the fridge door open, munching on spinach leaves!), we will eat more?! I was curious what Anne thought about the trend, on one hand, it’s another “trend” that will come and go, but on the other hand, it could encourage people to consume more veggies! I hadn’t thought about what it might insinuate about our relationship with food these days.

Anne: The article featuring the trend noted that just 1 in 10 of Americans meet the daily recommendations for veggies, which is 2-4 cups a day, and mentioned that for some, the barrier is time — the time it takes to make a salad or roast some veggies — and that this “dinosaur trend” aims to make eating your greens super simple. So, we know what’s healthy, but it seems like finding the time to prepare it in appetizing ways is the challenge for most these days. Is it true that we just don’t have an extra 20 minutes to throw together a salad? Or is it that the time it takes isn’t worth it? I guess another question I have is, so we wolf down the plain spinach and “get it out of the way,” then what are we rushing to do next? Get to better tasting things?

It makes me think of a quote by Stephen Dubner that we featured in last August’s Noosletter, The Devil is in the Dose,

“Food is probably the single most important input we control in terms of helping our bodies and mind function, so of course we should try and optimize its contribution to that end.” Followed with an interview he had with cookbook author Kenji López-Alt asking him: “…But then there’s a school of thought, small but growing, that says that one reason we’ve gotten into such nutritional trouble is because we have had the luxury to eat for taste and that we stopped eating for nutrition.”

Is this trend gaining popularity because we have this belief that the food that's “good” for us doesn’t taste good, and we should just plug our nose and wolf it down? I can remember so clearly, as a child, sitting at the dinner table and pushing around the waxy beans and eating them as a means to an end, not because of enjoyment. Fast forward 30 years, and with a more diverse palate and better understanding of how food affects me, I've discovered that eating can be both nourishing and enjoyable. “Healthy” foods don't present an either/or choice—they can be both good for us and delicious.

Avery: Totally agree — my mom used to make us eat our vegetables for breakfast the next day if we refused them the night before, and most nights we would eat them just to have a shot at dessert. However, after years of experimenting with what feels good and what doesn’t, I realized that vegetables and other healthy foods can actually be delicious, feel good, and nourish me (triple threat!). Perhaps it’s a learned mindset (maybe my mom was right from the start?!). Perhaps it’s just eating like an adult — at some point or another, you just have to get over the “ick” factor you may have experienced as a child when you look at a plate of vegetables. Or maybe some people need to be dinosaurs to do that.

Anne: Another trend that was brought to my attention last week was from yet another TikTok video called people kibble. It’s a way to help with meal prep and to get vegetables, grains and proteins all in one finely chopped meal. Yep, read that again, people kibble as in people dog food. What?!

Listen, if these “methods” will help you consume more vegetables, have at it. Perhaps this is a way for people intimidated by cooking or for those who dislike vegetables to consume more. And I get it, it’s TikTok—it actually makes me laugh a little now saying the name Dinosaur Time out loud and picturing the video, but these trends are merely the visible tip of a much larger iceberg, reflecting a troubling disconnect between nourishment and enjoyment.

The practice reduces eating to a purely functional activity—a chore to be completed with “minimal effort.” This mechanistic approach to nutrition mirrors our broader tendency to optimize and hack our way through wellness, prioritizing efficiency over experience. As we navigate busy lives where time feels increasingly scarce (do you have children in youth sports?!), we've begun treating eating as an obstacle to overcome rather than something to appreciate. I understand eating can’t always be a leisurely, mindful experience—yes, sometimes it will be grabbing a protein bar between meetings or a sandwich in the car, that’s life! But when this rushed eating becomes our everyday normal, that's when we start to lose something important. We start turning one of life's fundamental joys into just another checkbox on our productivity list. We also risk teaching our children that meals are just obligations to power through quickly, rather than chances to nourish our bodies and actually connect with each other over stories and conversation.

Avery: What insight, Anne!! So good. Perhaps we should consider stepping out of a feral dinosaur stance, and find some pleasure in a new salad dressing recipe or roasted veggies that will help our vegetable consumption last longer than the next TikTok trend. I get it, if you need to be a dino to get a foot in the door (fridge!) then go for it, but for long term enjoyment, consider shifting your mindframe to make eating vegetables enjoyable and find something you like! Just like when we talk about exercise — the best workout is the one you will do consistently — the same can be applied for a balanced diet.

Anne: The irony is that by attempting to simplify our relationship with healthy foods through shortcuts like “Dinosaur Time,” we may actually be reinforcing the very problem: the misguided idea that nutritious foods can’t also be delicious and worthy of our time and attention. I think until we truly understand that food can be both delicious and nutritious we will continue to have a divided relationship with food. Also, it’s interesting that these trends are happening now, during an era when we have more convenience and time than ever. We have so many meal delivery services, grocery delivery, and countless time-saving kitchen gadgets at our fingertips, why are we still reducing food to something to be quickly consumed without enjoyment?

Perhaps most tellingly, these trends reflect our culture's growing tendency to quantify everything—including our bodies and health—into metrics to be optimized. So I guess the question isn't really if we have enough time to cook—it's whether we think that time spent preparing food is actually worth it in a world that's constantly telling us to optimize every single minute of our day. By turning food into just another productivity tool, we're probably feeding (pun intended!) the very anxiety that made us feel rushed in the first place.

Look, not everyone loves to cook—and that's totally okay! Some of us would rather do almost anything than chop vegetables for 20 minutes. But maybe there's a middle ground between pretending to be a dinosaur and preparing elaborate three-course meals every night. Perhaps it's about finding small moments of pleasure or connection in the process—a five-minute meal prep ritual while listening to our Noos Nugget (or your second favorite podcast 😆), or saving a fun recipe for the weekend when you have more time and maybe even get the kids involved. Even if cooking isn't your thing, there's something valuable about occasionally slowing down and engaging with our food beyond just shoveling it in. After all, finding a little joy in life’s simple tasks might be the real life hack we're all searching for.

So what do you think? Any T-Rexers our there? Is “dinosaur time” or “people kibble” something you will or have tried? Let us know in the comments, we love to hear from you!

Next week we are celebrating our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of writing our Noosletters with another free Monday Noosletter! Can’t wait to share what the last year of writing has been like — have a great week, Noosers!

Until next time,