This is a fascinating look at food production in this country since the 1950s and how “natural” and artificial flavors play a role in our shared agricultural history. These added flavors are tricking our brains into eating foods with poor nutritional values & disappointing blandness. Engagingly written and eye-opening! ( )

This book has a nice balance between our perception of foods such as in taste and other senses with the science behind food genetics and our physiologic response to food. I was surprised to learn about the "dilution effect" and inborn nutritional wisdom." And there's so much yet to learn. I now have an appreciation for "heirloom tomatoes." ( )

I enjoyed the book, but I don't believe all of the claims the author makes and I think he misunderstood the studies he quoted. ( )

This is a look at food and flavour. For decades now, food has become very bland – this includes meat, fruit, and vegetables. Because the companies and farmers want more and more yield for less and less money. This = no more flavour. So companies started creating flavours to make the food taste like what they should have already tasted like… and flavours to make foods taste like whatever they want them to taste like. But with the real flavour gone, so is much of the nutrition. And that is not getting put back into the foods, only fake chemical “flavours”.

This was so interesting. And so sad. It makes me want to go back in time to taste all the flavours that used to come (naturally) with food (without having to add fake flavours, sauces, spices, etc). A few people here and there are trying to bring back some of the original strains for some of the foods (chicken, tomatoes), but the industrial farmers and companies don’t want any part of it unless it can be done just as cheaply and create just as much yield. Sad sad sad. Would love to have some companies catch on to this (and yes, I realize it would be more pricey). ( )

It was interesting to hear about another mess-up of the industrial farmers & food moguls, but the chemical names & details he included were a little more than I needed, although others may have enjoyed them. He did, however, document the findings well. ( )