Is 2021 a turning point for food technology?
Is this how we make our food system more sustainable?
There are several definitions for food technology! As a food scientist, I consider food tech to be the application of food science principles. However, I keep reading articles that are more about tech in terms of computer tech than the application of science. So having got that off my chest, I was interested and concerned to read this article about food technology in 2021 in the Food Dive.
Interested because I am always fascinated by food science and its application to our diet. I agree with Jonathan McIntyre when he says:
“There is science in all of food, but we don't talk about it. ...The way it's cooked, the way it's harvested, the way it's cleaned, washed, combined with other ingredients, is all based on science,”
What concerns me, later in the article, was the suggestion that the only way people will eat more fruit is to take the stones out of cherries or making greens less bitter. As someone who loves fruit and vegetables and spent a year with FoodCorps showing children that fruit and vegetables are fun and tasty, I would rather we didn’t look to genetic modification to make our food system healthy. We need to look at our food system differently and accept that we cannot always have control over what we eat.
I compare this with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s article on the Serviceberry: The Economy of Abundance. This has to be my favorite essay so far of 2021 and I think we have to have a mindset shift and learn to love the gifts that nature provides us.
What do you think about genetically modifying food? Are there benefits?