Unnaturally Delicious

I started to think about how many food items there are for consumers that just aren’t the real thing, yet we seem to accept them as such. According to the Discovery Channel, Alaskan crabs really do exist, but every where I go I see something called “Sea Legs” or artificial crab. It turns out that this alternative is just some other white fish sweetened, painted, and shaped.

Despite the fact that Sea Legs is not crab, we seem to accept it as such. Sushi, Chinese food, seafood salads– these all seem to thrive on this alternative. I actually find it pretty tasty, but it bothers me that we call it crab meat when it isn’t. At what point do we actually forget what real crab meat is?

Another product that bothers me is pancake syrup. Waffles and pancakes are a big breakfast item in our house. We like to put butter (not margarine) and syrup on them. We say syrup, but we are assuming we are putting maple syrup on them, because that is what you put on pancakes–a sticky-sweet, brown viscous liquid. However, most of these don’t contain a drop of maple syrup. We have grown so accustomed to this non-maple syrup, that when we did get some from a friend who lives in Vermont, we really didn’t like it as much.

From the book Fast Food Nation, I learned how artificial flavorings are a huge business. It seems that most fast food burgers are so processed that they are left without any color or flavor, so this is just added back in chemically. We are getting very close to a futuristic sci-fi world where we eat generic tablets flavored in a variety of ways. It makes me what to shout, “Soylent Green is people!“

Fruit flavoring is perhaps the most often exploited. How many fruit “drinks” are there with big picture of fruit on the label yet state “contains no fruit juice“? I even saw a TV commercial with people running around gargantuan fruit advertising yet another drink that contains no fruit juice. What’s wrong with fruit juice, or actual fruit itself? It’s getting to the point that if we eat a red ice pop, we feel as if we had our daily allowance of fruit. Little kids don’t even refer to most foods by their artificial flavors–instead of asking for cherry or lemon ice, now we ask for them by color. “I want red!“

I actually gravitate to blue colored items, perhaps because it is so unnatural. Red is usually cherry or strawberry. Orange is orange, Yellow is lemon, etc. So what is blue? It’s nevery blueberry, and blueberries, despite their name, are more purple (which is always grape).

I am cynical enough to know that the answer to most “why?” questions is money. It’s cheaper to use these artificial flavorings, either in the production or even just the preservation and shelf-life of products.

Look around and recognize all of the substitutes there are for sugar, salt, butter, and everything else we eat.

Yummy!

Add comment July 14th, 2006