Okay, everyone. Let’s talk food.
We are in the grip of a food crisis. Obesity has become a leading cause of preventable death, after only smoking. How exactly did this occur?
Ever since the 1940s, with the rise of industrialized food production, we have been gradually leeching the taste out of what we grow.Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in flavor technology, creating a flavor industry, worth billions annually; in an attempt to put back the tastes we’ve engineered out of our food.
The result? A national cuisine that increasingly resembles the paragon of flavor manipulation: Doritos. As food—all food—becomes increasingly bland, we dress it up with calories and flavor chemicals to make it delicious again. In doing so we have not only incentivized the wrong food, but interfered with the ancient chemical language—flavor—that once guided us to a healthy, balanced diet, so that now it leads us astray.
The Dorito Effect by acclaimed journalist Mark Schatzker is a fantastic resource to learn more about the flavor problem. Check it out here.
If you’re interested in learning more about the politics of food, here are 9 books that might change the way you think about food.
In Defense of Food
Salt Sugar Fat