pabulum

noun4

1. •
   Food or fodder, particularly that taken in by plants or animals.
2. •
   (figurative) Bland intellectual fare; an undemanding diet of words.

   • But the rescheduling of the directors' meeting for 7.30 a.m., and the trotting-out of such tawdry pabulums? — 1998
3. •
   Material that feeds a fire.
4. •
   (figurative) Food for thought.

   • And with the eye of a bird seeking for minute fragmnts of seed, minute insects, tiny parasites, we also look for things that to us are the constituents of our mental or visual pabula. — 1905