The History Of Food Modification

Food is essential to human survival. It provides the proteins, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals needed to stay alive, grow, and stay healthy. Food also serves other social and re­ligious functions. Seder meals, birthday dinners, awards banquets, wake buffets, and other food-related functions bring people together for a host of cultural purposes. In some fundamental ways, the role of food in human society has probably not changed very much in thousands of years.

People seldom eat foods taken directly from nature—an apple picked from the tree or a raw piece of tuna pulled from the ocean. Instead, they peel, chop, steam, salt, cook, or otherwise modify foods before they eat them. Processed foods have been part of the human diet from the beginning of human culture and still are, but to a much greater extent and in far more sophisticated ways. Food today is still treated by some very old processes, such as salting and drying, but it is also modified in ways resulting in products that barely resemble natural foods. Probably the most important single factor in the way food processing has changed over the past 2,000 years is chemi­cal science. Researchers have found ways of adding chemicals to foods to change their flavor, color, texture, or other properties. They have developed methods for changing the physical and chemical

composition of foods to make them more nutritious or palatable. They have even invented new foods that do not exist in nature.

Modern techniques of food modification have both benefits and risks. They make it possible, for example, for people to enjoy foods year round that were once available for only limited times of the year. These techniques enable people in all parts of the world to have nutritious foods that extend their lives and reduce the risk of disease. They present a range of new kinds of foods that earlier gen­erations could hardly have imagined.

But the modified foods produced by chemical research also have their downside. Some new products may contain additives that are harmful to human health. The development of these foods may cre­ate hazards for the physical and biological environment. And the development of new foods may be driven by concerns other than people's best interests—by the desire to make an economic profit, for example—that may not justify the effort.

Questions about the value of modified foods arise frequently in today's world. What constitutes a "good" food versus a "bad" food? Are natural foods always and inherently better for people than pro­cessed foods? When does the use of chemical substances or chemical technologies improve the value of food, and when are they likely to reduce its nutritional value or create other kinds of problems for the consumer? Consumers often do not know the answers to these questions.