To whom it may concern,
I just got finished reading Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner, and it’s quite the informational snack – easy to digest and very satisfying, even though bits and pieces might upset your stomach. If you can find the time to sit down with a copy, I would strongly recommend it; I certainly can’t call it a painless read, but the facts it presents so candidly are valuable to anyone even remotely interested in what they eat. Of course, if you’re on the fence, and you’re looking for a brief synopsis, I’ve got you covered! Here’s my story, about what happened when I opened Pandora’s Lunchbox.
Warner begins her voyage into forbidden food knowledge with an Institute of Food Technology (IFT) conference, which hosts hundreds of processed food companies from all around the globe. She presents the event in a way that makes it seem really impressive; smiling scientists with witty one liners, shiny new edible inventions that look and taste exactly like their natural counterparts, and a breakdown of dietary components that is nothing short of extensively thorough. Most of the things you eat on a regular basis are constructed seamlessly from individual compounds that have been perfectly isolated, and can contribute to the final product anything from flavor to texture. It was a delightful surprise, as a physical chemist, to learn that “the food industry relies heavily on […] dried, finely pulverized materials […]” (11), whether it be in yogurt, muffins, burgers, etc. These substances allow for an experimental approach in making food last longer and taste better, and knowing that food scientists are working with such refined building blocks instills in me a childlike wonder. I know the same can’t be said for everyone; knowing that your food has been carefully constructed from a number of unfamiliar materials can be discomforting. This is where the book can get a little grating. Warner is no stranger to long, descriptive lists, especially when it comes to chemistry. While everything else is presented in layman’s terms, the chemical methods and materials she describes are given no such attention. What results are walls of frightening and complex terms that readers are left to assume as negatives. From a scientific perspective, the use of bacteria and hydrochloric acid to turn sorbitol into Vitamin C (84) is completely innocuous. Chemists like myself know why these methods are safe – but a fair majority of people aren’t so fortunate. This is my one big criticism for this otherwise approachable piece of literature: its goal is to inform the masses, but some instances of its rhetoric rely on withholding information. In spite of this, Warner’s view of the food innovators seems positive, if not pleasantly impressed; the true villain to her tale lies on the side of corporate.
Unless you’ve somehow lived your entire life off of home grown produce, or you’ve found the freshest farmers market in all of the United States, you’re no doubt familiar with name brand foods. From lunch meat to veggies to berries to drinks, everything you put into your shopping cart has gone through some corporation whose name is colorfully plastered on the packaging. These businesses operate strictly on profit - lower the cost of production, and aim to increase sales. This means finding cheap alternatives, which have a nasty tendency of being less healthy. Gun-puffed cereals, like Rice Krispies and Bran Flakes, are easy to produce, at little cost, and they fly off the shelves as popular morning staples; gun-puffing also breaks down certain carbohydrates to the point where our body can’t use them (68). Soy is easy to grow, full of nutrients, and it’s used as a cheap alternative to many proteins and fats used across the food spectrum; unfortunately, heavy processing weeds most of these benefits out in favor of more isolated, more malleable stand-ins (157). These corner cutting methods certainly save a quick buck, and they don’t taste half bad either – but in the face of complex body chemistry, they’re depriving us of the nuanced system of compounds our body needs to truly be healthy. The numbers don’t lie; selective diet testing on rats show that highly processed grains can suffer increased weight gain (71), and the overwhelming presence of soy in our diets has led to clinical imbalance of Omega-6 fatty acids (141). Nutrition science isn’t slowing down, either. As we begin to understand why our body craves the eccentric array of nutrients found only in natural produce, the “essential vitamins and minerals” we read on the back of the box are looking a lot less filling. Warner emphasizes this point with a finale focusing on a family whose daily routine is defined by fast food. While this is an extreme example of processed food (given that fast foods is universally understood to be unhealthy at this point), fast food is guilty of the same crimes that the industry is tragically unknown for: lower prices, better taste, and no concern for what’s lost on the way. The family switched their food from fast to fresh, in a home experiment conducted as the mother’s lofty health kick. The results, while not rigorously quantified, show just how powerful a healthy body chemistry can be. Mental health, bowel movements, and daily energy all improved significantly after the switch to healthier alternatives (212). I have no doubt that there are countless studies confirming this kind of behavior, that fresher food leads to a healthier mind and body (though, perhaps not to the extreme described above). The question is, will corporations listen? Will the public take heed? In a world where profits are up and health is down, who needs to care what goes into our bodies?
Well, we do. It’s our job to become informed, to demand better, and to do better for ourselves. Warner states at the very end that she wrote Pandora’s Lunchbox as “an argument for eating foods that are closer to the ground” (223). What she shares is hard to swallow - that most of the food we eat is based in misinformation, smoke and mirrors - but it’s a bitter truth that we need to accept. With the dominance of industrial food in supermarkets, the spread of information is pivotal in ensuring that people get the nutrition they need. If for nothing else, you should give this book a try to learn about the hand that’s feeding you – because the one thing that Warner drives home, is that you shouldn’t always trust what the industry puts on your plate.
I just got finished reading Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner, and it’s quite the informational snack – easy to digest and very satisfying, even though bits and pieces might upset your stomach. If you can find the time to sit down with a copy, I would strongly recommend it; I certainly can’t call it a painless read, but the facts it presents so candidly are valuable to anyone even remotely interested in what they eat. Of course, if you’re on the fence, and you’re looking for a brief synopsis, I’ve got you covered! Here’s my story, about what happened when I opened Pandora’s Lunchbox.
Warner begins her voyage into forbidden food knowledge with an Institute of Food Technology (IFT) conference, which hosts hundreds of processed food companies from all around the globe. She presents the event in a way that makes it seem really impressive; smiling scientists with witty one liners, shiny new edible inventions that look and taste exactly like their natural counterparts, and a breakdown of dietary components that is nothing short of extensively thorough. Most of the things you eat on a regular basis are constructed seamlessly from individual compounds that have been perfectly isolated, and can contribute to the final product anything from flavor to texture. It was a delightful surprise, as a physical chemist, to learn that “the food industry relies heavily on […] dried, finely pulverized materials […]” (11), whether it be in yogurt, muffins, burgers, etc. These substances allow for an experimental approach in making food last longer and taste better, and knowing that food scientists are working with such refined building blocks instills in me a childlike wonder. I know the same can’t be said for everyone; knowing that your food has been carefully constructed from a number of unfamiliar materials can be discomforting. This is where the book can get a little grating. Warner is no stranger to long, descriptive lists, especially when it comes to chemistry. While everything else is presented in layman’s terms, the chemical methods and materials she describes are given no such attention. What results are walls of frightening and complex terms that readers are left to assume as negatives. From a scientific perspective, the use of bacteria and hydrochloric acid to turn sorbitol into Vitamin C (84) is completely innocuous. Chemists like myself know why these methods are safe – but a fair majority of people aren’t so fortunate. This is my one big criticism for this otherwise approachable piece of literature: its goal is to inform the masses, but some instances of its rhetoric rely on withholding information. In spite of this, Warner’s view of the food innovators seems positive, if not pleasantly impressed; the true villain to her tale lies on the side of corporate.
Unless you’ve somehow lived your entire life off of home grown produce, or you’ve found the freshest farmers market in all of the United States, you’re no doubt familiar with name brand foods. From lunch meat to veggies to berries to drinks, everything you put into your shopping cart has gone through some corporation whose name is colorfully plastered on the packaging. These businesses operate strictly on profit - lower the cost of production, and aim to increase sales. This means finding cheap alternatives, which have a nasty tendency of being less healthy. Gun-puffed cereals, like Rice Krispies and Bran Flakes, are easy to produce, at little cost, and they fly off the shelves as popular morning staples; gun-puffing also breaks down certain carbohydrates to the point where our body can’t use them (68). Soy is easy to grow, full of nutrients, and it’s used as a cheap alternative to many proteins and fats used across the food spectrum; unfortunately, heavy processing weeds most of these benefits out in favor of more isolated, more malleable stand-ins (157). These corner cutting methods certainly save a quick buck, and they don’t taste half bad either – but in the face of complex body chemistry, they’re depriving us of the nuanced system of compounds our body needs to truly be healthy. The numbers don’t lie; selective diet testing on rats show that highly processed grains can suffer increased weight gain (71), and the overwhelming presence of soy in our diets has led to clinical imbalance of Omega-6 fatty acids (141). Nutrition science isn’t slowing down, either. As we begin to understand why our body craves the eccentric array of nutrients found only in natural produce, the “essential vitamins and minerals” we read on the back of the box are looking a lot less filling. Warner emphasizes this point with a finale focusing on a family whose daily routine is defined by fast food. While this is an extreme example of processed food (given that fast foods is universally understood to be unhealthy at this point), fast food is guilty of the same crimes that the industry is tragically unknown for: lower prices, better taste, and no concern for what’s lost on the way. The family switched their food from fast to fresh, in a home experiment conducted as the mother’s lofty health kick. The results, while not rigorously quantified, show just how powerful a healthy body chemistry can be. Mental health, bowel movements, and daily energy all improved significantly after the switch to healthier alternatives (212). I have no doubt that there are countless studies confirming this kind of behavior, that fresher food leads to a healthier mind and body (though, perhaps not to the extreme described above). The question is, will corporations listen? Will the public take heed? In a world where profits are up and health is down, who needs to care what goes into our bodies?
Well, we do. It’s our job to become informed, to demand better, and to do better for ourselves. Warner states at the very end that she wrote Pandora’s Lunchbox as “an argument for eating foods that are closer to the ground” (223). What she shares is hard to swallow - that most of the food we eat is based in misinformation, smoke and mirrors - but it’s a bitter truth that we need to accept. With the dominance of industrial food in supermarkets, the spread of information is pivotal in ensuring that people get the nutrition they need. If for nothing else, you should give this book a try to learn about the hand that’s feeding you – because the one thing that Warner drives home, is that you shouldn’t always trust what the industry puts on your plate.