Essay 2 - Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life by David Boyle

Quotes and Thoughts

"It's not that the market for fast food has somehow disappeared - it clearly hasn't - but there is a growing demand for what is authentic, local, and trustworthy."
Boyle discusses about how after the moon landing in 1969, Raymond Baxter and James Burke published a version of what they thought food would me like in 2120, and it was very similar the space food the astronauts were eating. Boyle says that although in the 20th century there is 'fake' food such as Pot Noodles and ready meals, however, people are actually leaning in to the fresher, healthier approach.

(Speaking about Elizabeth David) "What makes her such an exemplar of the new authenticity is that she graduated beyond a simplistic dismissal of everything stodgy and English, and the assumption that real food had to be elaborate, expensive and exclusive to be real."
An interesting take on 'real' food - as a lot of healthier items are marketed as 'posher' and the nicer option. Whereas David wanted to make healthier the norm.

(More on Elizabeth David) "British bread by this time was the most chemically treated in Europe, and Elizabeth David turned her attention to defending small independent food producers, knowing that authentic food required diversity."
An interesting way to look at how authentic food began as very diverse and independent.

"Just 13 big bread manufacturers now control a £3 billion industry producing airy loaves with so few nutrients in them that they have to be injected with vitamins."
Goes to show how much money goes into food that is not natural or healthy.

"At least 95% of food and drink products advertised during children's TV viewing times are high in fat,sugar, or salt."
"School textbooks are increasingly sponsored by food giants."
"In the USA, McDonald's and Burger Kind run more than 10,000 playgrounds between them."
"It is disturbing, through hardly surprising in these circumstances, that Americans spend more on fast food than they do in education."
Some stats to show how fast food giants target children through marketing in the USA. Upon reflection its interesting how mostly healthier food is targeted at adults but never children.

"The once proud tradition of independent chicken farming has been transformed into a miserable franchise. It's a tough existence, where pathetically dependent growers earn just $12,000 dollars on average after 15 years of work."
Boyle goes into the history of Chicken McNuggets and how they put many independent chicken farmers out of business.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal by Eric Schlosser
"The basic thinking behind fast food has become the operating system of today's retail economy, wiping out small businesses, obliterating regional differences, and spreading identical stores throughout the country like a self replicating code."

"Food conglomerates control enormous research budgets, locking academic departments in just as the pharmaceutical industry does - sometimes suppressing research findings that don't suit them.Some of the big brands sponsor teaching materials that are hazy, to say the least, about key issues like the health effects of sugar or the implications of GM foods." 
Although this book may be slightly outdated (2003), this is what I want to focus my essay on. The lies that food companies tell and how they cover them up when it comes to health and food.

- Page 91