You are what you eat —— Reading Delicious Deception

"You are what you eat" is a popular English proverb, but its history is not long, and its original source is of course untraceable, but it seems that this sentence has been in English for less than one hundred years. 1920 By the 1930s, this sentence became popular with people's concern about food safety and became the name of newspaper advertisements and published books. -Wait, why should people in 1920s pay attention to food safety? Shouldn't it be an idyllic era, an era when all food is organic? If you and I have similar ideas, delicious fraud may give you a blow: food fraud never stopped, even in ancient times when productivity was low. If large-scale adulteration is really a common problem in industrialized cities, it is an indisputable fact that the history of cheating is much longer than the real day.

In fact, "food fraud" itself is a difficult concept to define. This book mentions at least two aspects: "shoddy" and "out of nothing". The former has always been a scam, but industrialization has completely raised this matter to a new height. The author takes/kloc-tea counterfeiting at the beginning of the 9th century as an example:

Although there was lead and mercury in the pre-industrial era, I believe there is definitely no acetate and "Dutch red". After some operations, the leaves on your hedge are sold as nutritious and refreshing exotic drinks. No wonder critics who read this book will complain in their articles that "after reading his book, we may not be able to eat anything".

Up to now, inferior quality is not completely extinct, but it has obviously improved to a great extent compared with Britain 1820; However, with the continuous progress of science and technology, fraud methods have also risen; This involves another aspect: making something out of nothing. Or in the words of Carolyn Walker, a nutritionist in the early 20th century, it is "legal consumer fraud". The example mentioned here is "raspberry butterfly"-or the food that should be called "raspberry butterfly" according to the law:

It can be said that such muffins contain everything-except raspberries. This is an area that we are familiar with: food manufacturers skillfully use various additives to enhance color, fragrance, taste and consistency. Of course, some people will argue that there are laws to follow in food safety at present, and each additive has a maximum dosage, but we have to say that the human body is a complex and exquisite system. Various small doses of additives may not have immediate effects, but who can say for sure?

However, worrying about food can easily lead people to the other extreme: blindly pursuing "nutrition" and "nature". In fact, adding nutrients to food may have serious consequences (understanding vitamin poisoning), and countries do not agree on the standard of "organic", not to mention that organic food seems to be becoming a patent for the rich to avoid the threat of pollution. As the saying goes, the devil climbs a foot, which is an eternal theme in the struggle against adulterated food. The author also reluctantly admits that most people do not have real and reliable knowledge of food safety. But it's never too late to learn from now on. More importantly, trust your senses, look at the luster of live fish and smell the real fragrant rice. ...