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April 23, 2018
Science writer Temple (coauthor of Sorting the Beef from the Bull) condenses huge amounts of information about the history and evolution of processed food into a comprehensible overview of the food industrial complex. In chapters on cheese, bread, produce, and proteins, she explains how the food in grocery stores gets marketed (advertisements “showed rows... of carefully placed crackers with various topping glued on with Cheese Whiz”), shows how various advances in technology have influenced food production (irradiation in the 1950s “was established as a scientifically sound and safe method of preserving food”), and gives readers a glimpse of the evolution and purposes of food additives such as preservatives and emulsifiers (carrageenan, for instance, is derived from red seaweed and added to low-calorie ice cream for texture). A chapter on food applications of nanotechnology makes it clear that food processing companies are operating at the cutting edge of science, employing innovations such as nanoparticles that increase photosynthesis in plants. Temple asks throughout whether humans have moved too far from simple ingredients and traditional processes—especially considering the environmental impact of human food systems—but doesn’t come to a firm conclusion. This thoughtful, well-researched history makes a great companion to Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.

February 15, 2018
A thoroughly researched, well-written account that attempts to remove the stigma from the term "processed food."Temple, a Canadian science writer, conservationist, and biologist now based in England, has researched and exposed fraud in the food industry (co-author: Sorting the Beef from the Bull, 2016), but her mission here is not to expose but to educate. She seeks to help consumers sort out fact from fiction, to understand how processing has evolved and how it benefits society. She looks at the origins of some of the oldest processed foods--cheese and bread--and describes why and how it is processed. Among other reasons, food is processed to reduce waste, extend shelf life, improve nutrition, and provide convenience and diversity, and the methods are widely varied: smoking, fermenting, canning, dehydrating, refrigerating, freezing, and irradiating, to name a few. Temple reminds readers that washing, peeling, cutting, and packaging are also forms of processing that impact how consumers select fruits and vegetables. The author elucidates the processing of meat from the early days of sausage-making to current techniques of mechanically separating meat from bone and the latest attempts to produce cultured meat using stem cells. There is also a brief exploration of nanotechnology, but it is clearly a field in which Temple is not especially comfortable. She excels at telling stories from her own life, some from her childhood and more from her own kitchen or her outings to markets. As a shopper, she is concerned about the choices facing consumers living within a complex global food system. This book is an attempt to inform readers and make them more aware of that complexity and to understand how their decisions can shape the future, one likely filled with shortages and instability as well as innovations.Despite the book's decidedly British flavor, its subject, food, is universal, and so should be its appeal.

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