Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder
By Rob Lyons
3/5
()
About this ebook
Related to Panic on a Plate
Related ebooks
American Appetites: A Documentary Reader Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Vegetarianism and Veganism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Smart People Make Bad Food Choices: The Invisible Influences that Guide Our Thinking Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFood for Thought: Selected Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHealthy French Cuisine for Less Than $10/Day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Grand Food Bargain: and the Mindless Drive for More Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWeight Loss, Italian-Style!: Ditch the Diet, Pass the Pasta, and Drop the Pounds Forever Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Weight of Their Votes: Southern Women and Political Leverage in the 1920s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBitter and Sweet: Food, Meaning, and Modernity in Rural China Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMilk: A Local and Global History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Romance of Names Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Natural Theologian: Essays on Nature and the Christian Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDetroit's Holy Family Church: 100 Years of Sicilian Tradition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Edible History of Humanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Instant Loss: Eat Real, Lose Weight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKitchen Chemistry: The 'Mostly' Paleo Cookbook for Couples to Spark Better Health Together Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vegetarian's Guide to Eating Meat: A Young Woman's Search for Ethical Food Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Guess Who's Coming To Dinner: Feasting Rituals in the Prehistoric Societies of Europe and the Near East Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA History of Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devouring Cultures: Perspectives on Food, Power, and Identity from the Zombie Apocalypse to Downton Abbey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChild's War: Growing Up on the Home Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAllergic Girl: Adventures in Living Well with Food Allergies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFood, Cookery, and Dining in Ancient Times: Alexis Soyer's Pantropheon Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Vindication of England's Policy with Regard to the Opium Trade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWords to Eat By: Five Foods and the Culinary History of the English Language Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Food Science For You
The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Baked to Perfection: Winner of the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Make Coffee: The Science Behind the Bean Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary and Analysis of The Case Against Sugar: Based on the Book by Gary Taubes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wild Mushrooming: A Guide for Foragers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Science of Fitness: Power, Performance, and Endurance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bread Science: The Chemistry and Craft of Making Bread Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Canning and Preserving Guide including Recipes (Boxed Set) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mouthfeel: How Texture Makes Taste Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spheres, and Other Chill Cocktail Crafts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Guide to Seed and Nut Oils: Growing, Foraging, and Pressing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVeg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEat More Better: How to Make Every Bite More Delicious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Manual of Scientific Style: A Guide for Authors, Editors, and Researchers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSurvival 101: Food Storage A Step by Step Beginners Guide on Preserving Food and What to Stockpile While Under Quarantine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Starter Guide for Food Truck Business: Food Truck Business and Restaurants, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Panic on a Plate
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Panic on a Plate - Rob Lyons
2010
How has our food changed?
One of the prejudices of the food debate today is that there was a Golden Age in which everyone ate well, with lots of locally produced meat, fruit and vegetables, lovingly prepared at home. All this could be purchased from the friendly, local greengrocer, butcher and baker, who would be ready with a smile and a little local gossip. Eating out was rare and convenience food non-existent.
This idyll is presented in sharp contrast to a modern way of eating, built on ready meals, fast food and ‘junk’. Our children allegedly grow up on sweets and crisps, and wouldn’t recognise a real vegetable if it bit them. If only we could return to those home-cooked meals of yore, goes the misty-eyed argument, then all of our problems of obesity and ill-health would disappear.
But both sides of this image are exaggerated. The working classes in Britain did not eat well until comparatively recently. Food was expensive relative to many people’s incomes and what they could afford was often monotonous and dull. It is only with rising living standards, falling food prices and the appearance of the much-maligned supermarket that a wide range of foods was available at affordable prices to the majority. Moreover, the ‘home-grown’ past was built on the hard labour of women, who stayed at home to raise families and were able to devote long periods of time to buying food and cooking it.
A high-profile version of this idea is promoted by the American academic and food writer, Michael Pollan, in his bestselling In Defence of Food. Pollan presents us with some handy food rules, summed up in the seven-word motto: ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’ And what does Pollan mean by food? ‘Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.’ As a note of explanation, he adds: ‘Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.’[1]
It seems a little strange that we should be fretting about our eating habits when cookery books and shows are so ubiquitous. We are surrounded by Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sophie Dahl, the Hairy Bikers, Rick Stein and many more. Jamie Oliver has become a one-man food industry. His most recent book, Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals, is the fastest selling non-fiction book in UK publishing history: only JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books have sold faster. BBC1 television gives over a great chunk of its Saturday mornings to Saturday Kitchen, while food-related shows like Masterchef (in no less than three different formats), Hell’s Kitchen, Ready Steady Cook, The Great British Bake-Off, The Great British Menu and many more would suggest that we are a nation in love with food and cooking.
Others have called our modern obsession with cookery ‘food porn’: an apt description of an interest in food that is all about watching and not about doing. British food writer Joanna Blythman is, to a degree, right to be sceptical of the idea that the nation’s food culture has undergone a renaissance:
Nowadays, Britain so desperately wants to be seen as a fully functioning, participatory food culture that it feeds this delusion by selectively ignoring the gaping discrepancies that don’t fit. Most glaringly, there’s our growing incompetence in the domestic kitchen and our increasing reluctance to cook - surely the most telling indicator of a nation’s culinary health? How many people do you know who still consider it a priority to cook from scratch a simple, home-made meal most days of the week?[2]
As it happens, Blythman may be overly pessimistic. A survey on British eating habits conducted for the Food Standards Agency reported in March 2011 that ‘almost three-fifths (57 per cent) said they cooked or prepared food for themselves every day, and 37 per cent did so for others’. A majority of respondents agreed with the statements ‘I enjoy cooking and preparing food’ (68 per cent), and ‘I enjoy making new things to eat’ (65 per cent). The majority (65 per cent) disagreed with the statement ‘For me, food is just fuel to live’. Overall, 40 per cent agreed with ‘Cooking is like a hobby for me’.
Jamie Oliver also laments the demise of ‘real food’, and illustrates this by showing how many children cannot recognise common vegetables. In his US television series Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, Oliver visits a class of six-year-olds in West Virginia and asks them to identify a variety of vegetables. He’s shocked to find that the children failed the task. (Though he really shouldn’t be - he performed precisely the same demonstration in his UK series Jamie’s School Dinners a few years earlier.) They knew what tomato ketchup was, but didn’t recognise tomatoes. They thought an eggplant might be a pear and guessed that a beet was celery. This seems dramatic, but what did Oliver’s stunt actually prove? Quite apart from the fact that such young children don’t know much about anything at all, one blogger pointed out that it was as much an indication that the children didn’t read. After all, the alphabet is often illustrated with vegetables for the letters - C is for Carrot, and so on. And if children don’t know how to name whole vegetables, it does not necessarily mean that they don’t, or won’t, eat