If you are interested in food, and by food I mean the industrialization of food, here are a few related quotes I picked out from two very good books I've yet to fully read. I did not write out any quotes from Anthony Bourdain's writing, Food is Good, but that is definitely something to read when you are looking for a Chef's point of view.
Pleasure of Eating
Wendell Berry
“The food industrialists have by now persuaded millions of consumers to prefer food that is already prepared. They will grow, deliver, and cook your food for you and (just like your mother) beg you to eat it. That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into your mouth only because they have found no profitable way to do so.” (Pg 22 and 23)
“The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.” (Pg 23)
“The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry- as in any other industry- the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. (Pg 24)
Omnivores Dilemma
Michael Pollan
“A country with a stable food culture would not shell out millions for the quackery (or common sense) of a new dietary book every January. It would not be susceptible to the pendulum swings of food scares or fads, to the apotheosis every few years of newly discovered nutrient and the demonization of another.” (Pg 3 and 4)
“Our ingenuity in feeding ourselves is prodigious, but at various points our technologies come into conflict with nature’s way of doing things, as when we seek to maximize efficiency by planting crops or raising animals in vast monocultures. This is something nature never does, always and for good reasons practicing diversity instead.” (Pg 10)
