What Happened to the Food of My Youth?

What Happened to the Food of My Youth?

Rant Warning: There are no solutions offered below.

We strayed from the path. We lost the thread. We traded quality for speed and standardization. We accepted mediocre, which led to homogenized, tasteless food. It looks like a tomato, but it doesn’t taste like one; It tastes like whatever you put on it.

We allowed the bottom line to take control of our quality of life. McDonald’s, Walmart, ConAgra, and Monsanto control the food we eat. It doesn’t matter that you don’t eat at McDonald’s, the food you consume has traveled through the system that has grown to support their voracious appetite. Most of what we eat in this country today, including fruits and vegetables, has been homogenized so as not to disrupt the expectation of the consumer. It’s all about the supply chain. And we allowed it. If I order a burger from McDonald’s in California, which would be rare given the guaranteed proximity of an In-N-Out, it would taste exactly the same as the burger I would order in New York. Beef, lettuce, tomatoes, etc, would taste exactly the same. It’s the way they want it. And since you can’t assure excellence in the taste of produce from the different locations that feed into the machine, standards are brought to the middle. The machine would rather have so-so tasting tomatoes that are consistent, rather the inconsistency of amazing tomatoes some of the time. Because then, we would want that, and that they can’t guarantee. We get chicken breasts that look plump and flavorful, but are a tasteless mass of protein, because more pounds of meat per bird maximize efficiency. And we get fruit that looks wonderful, but because it was picked early and sprayed with chemicals to hasten the ripening while it is being shipped, tastes bland or bitter.

I don’t think we saw this happening. Like watching your hair grow. You will never see it, but a friend who hasn’t seen you in a few weeks will instantly notice the change. You wake up one day and your hair is long. Really long.

This standardization has changed the way that we eat, the way that we shop, and our relationship with food. It’s no wonder that we have lost the joy of meal time with the family, it’s just no longer worth it. And so we get big boxes of processed food once a week and rarely cook from scratch. We don’t eat seasonally or locally except when what is grown in our area is so abundant that you can’t help but stop at a road-side stand. And then, for a brief moment, we catch a hint of the memory and what we miss. But like the season, it is soon gone, and we are back to frozen chicken from Costco or Walmart.

JOHN HARBOUR is the author of the novel, Nighthawks, as well as short fiction and essays. An incurable wanderlust, when he’s not experiencing other parts of the world, he lives with his wife in New York where he is currently working on The Heart.

Follow John on Twitter: @John_Harbour
Visit John at www.johnharbour.com