Introduction

First, I have a confession to make. I am a food scientist. I have spent a large part of my life in a white coat, or working with students in white coats, studying, analyzing, and creating food products, subjecting them to a variety of processes and tests to see what happens, and occasionally, very occasionally, even tasting them. This is my passion, and to me is one of the most exciting types of scientific research in which I could be engaged, where the challenges are complex and really interesting, but in every case relate in some way to something central to everyday life. Food science is probably the only field in which a scientific experiment can lead to a change that can have a measurable impact you can point to on a shelf or plate within a matter of days. Also, it is great to work in a field of science where sometimes, if your experiment doesn’t work, you can at least eat it! However, I accept that, for many people, this is not food. Food comes on a plate. Food is an art. Food is an experience. Food is pleasure. Food is life. Food is not something to handle with a white coat on, not something to deconstruct in test tubes, and certainly not anything to do with chemicals. Definitely not anything to do with chemicals. Food is not science; food is art. People today know what they want from the food they buy. They want a wide variety of safe, natural, convenient, nutritious, great-tasting food. They likewise know what they do not want. They don’t want processed food, they don’t want chemicals in their food, they don’t want preservatives. This presents those who provide that food with great challenges as, to deliver the things consumers want, they often have to avoid the very tools they have traditionally used to achieve these goals. In this book, I want to explore the contradictions at the heart of our understanding of food, which arise in part from the fact that food is both science and art.