I’ve been thinking about food in a box. Why it’s so gosh darn popular. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and you know what it’s going to taste like. (I think it tastes like salt.) That box of fill in the blank (for me it was hamburger helper without the hamburger) that I bought in college tastes the same 25 years ago as it does today. Because it was made by machine, with chemical A poured together with chemical B, sprinkled with artificial flavoring C. Unlike real food that varies in taste because the fruit/vegetable/dairy used varies in taste because of the rain, the sun, and the humans involved.
Processed foods (including the ones that we get through a window while sitting in our cars) are highly mechanized food products. Often these food products have never been touched by human hands. That, quite frankly, scares me. Cooking and baking are sensory experiences, the touch, the smell, the taste. And when food is prepare with those senses you can taste the difference.
Give me food that has been touched by human hands, even with it’s imperfections.
Note: Food security is nothing to brush aside. It’s a serious issue. More than one-third of the US households report having to choose between food and other basic necessities, such as rent, utilities and medical care. Millions of children in the US are going to bed hungry. When I raise the issue of cheap processed foods, it is not a criticism of families that need cheap food to survive. Wanting real sustainable food prepared by people also means that I want real sustainable farms that provide food to humans to be subsidized like the farms that provide corn to processed foods.
