The food industry likes economies of scale. As populations blooms and lands become tarnished; what is the future of our food and what will it taste like? There is a lot that is done to food in the growing process (cows fed on mass with “antibiotics, vaccines, hormones by the truckload”) as well as in processing before reaching the consumer. I’m interested in how much of what we are tasting is similar to what it is in its natural state. We have been processing meats for as long we have killed more than we can eat; through drying, salting, fermenting, pickling and curing. These clearly have an obvious effect on the consumer’s perception of the food they’re eating as ingredients increase the lifespan of the meats outside of refrigeration. Developed preservatives attempt to reduce their impact on taste but increase the lifespan of their product. This is most clearly seen in international chocolate. Everyone can tell there is a difference in American chocolate like Heresy to the leading British brand Cadbury. It has more preservatives and can handle higher temperature surroundings as well as lasting longer. No one refers to Hersey’s chocolate as “preserved chocolate” they are merely categorized as chocolate, and slowly our perception of what real chocolate tastes like is marred. Without being too speculative I feel that we are going to lose sight of what unprocessed foods are as they are no longer the norm, now being advertised as “organic” as some sort of extra quality that hasn’t always been assumed.
In a lecture by Nicola Twilley called “The Artificial Cryosphere and Public Appreciation of “Aeroir”” she discussed food tasting like its source due to pollution. This got me started on the idea of what we are really eating, because so much is done to food on top of the situations it is grown in that it is hard to imagine the taste of a purely natural food.