> I think the important thing to note about food is that it is consumed to satiate hunger!
>
> Any reason why my definition is a poor one?

No, but I'm kind of surprised to see most candies excluded from any definition of food. I see your point; still, I've actually consumed lifesavers to satiate hunger. I tend not to be able to eat breakfast first thing in the morning; what this means is, if I have to get out of the house in a hurry, I don't get a chance to eat anything at all. (This tended to to happen a lot when I was in college and had an early class -- I'd eat breakfast after it.) Well, *that* means that when my stomach does finally awake, roughly an hour after the rest of me does, it is hungry and likely grumbling and panging and whatnot. Something so insubstantial as a breath mint, I discovered, satiates those pangs for probably 20-30 minutes, often just long enough to tide me over until I can have some more substantial food. Probably even Pixie Stix would do as well.

This puts candy in the category of food by your definition. Or does it only put candy in the category of food on the rare situations when someone eats it because they're hungry?

You spoke of appetite-suppressants as technically fitting your definition, but that tweaking the brain directly is cheating. True; I've no problem with that exclusion. But some appetite suppressants work not by tweaking the brain but by expanding in the stomach, so that your body sends your brain the totally legitimate signal that it is full. This type of appetite suppressant doesn't directly manipulate the brain, but nor is it something that offers sustenance to the body. Eat only these, and you will die of starvation. Yet it is consumed to satiate hunger.

Finally, homemade playdough. It's not intended to be consumed, but if you were starving and you ate it, it would probably keep you alive. The volume of salt might dehydrate you, requiring you to drink water as well, but technically it could function as food if you needed it to. Is it food from the beginning, or only food if you actually eat it for the purpose of satiating hunger? You seem to suggest the latter, and I think I agree.

What I'm leading up to, though, is the following proposed definition:

Food is also something that *is* or *is intended to be* ingested and digested by the body. Period.

I think this definition excludes and includes the following:

1. Drugs are excluded. They are not digested by the body, as far as I know.

2. Candy is included. It is manufactured to be eaten and digested, and it is.

3. Gum is excluded. It's not meant to be eaten. It isn't eaten except by accident. And correct me if I'm wrong, but most of gum is not digestable anyway.

4. Playdough is excluded unless you actually eat it. It's not intended to be food. But if you treat it as food, it acts like food.

5. Vegetables are included. There is no "intention" other than arguably God's about a vegetable that requires no preparation; however, the definition covers things that *are* ingested and digested regardless of intention. And produce that is packaged for consumption is certainly intended to be eaten.

6. Not sure about those appetite suppressants. They expand in the stomach, but then what? Is that material digested?

7. Vitamins are included, but this is the part I don't know about. I don't really know if vitamins should count as food. Would a vitamin work to satiate hunger at least as well as a breath mint does? And yet, while it's ingested and digested, and it's intended to be ingested and digested, it's not treated as sustenance.

So I don't know that this is a great definition either. Perhaps the problem is that there isn't and shouldn't be a single authoritative definition. The word just isn't as specific as that.