Unnaturally Delicious- Jayson Lusk

A hopeful food future that works for everyone.

“I have two loaves of bread here.”- said Dr Louise Fresco in her Ted Talk “We need to Feed The Whole World“. “One is a supermarket standard: white bread, pre-packaged, which I’m told is called a Wonderbread. I didn’t know this word until I arrived. And this is more or less, a whole-meal, handmade, small-bakery loaf of bread. Here we go. I want to see a show of hands. Who prefers the whole-meal bread? Okay, let me do this differently. Is anybody preferring the Wonderbread at all?  I have two tentative male hands.”

In his book Unnaturally Delicious, Dr Jayson Lusk– Head of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, writes about a survey where he asks people to choose from two options as effective means to address issues in the food system. The options provided were -“adopting a more technological agricultural production system-more innovation, science and research in crops and food-or adopting  a more natural agricultural production system-more local, organic unprocessed crops and food.” No guesses here which option received the most ticks.

Whether its Dr Fresco’s impulsive show off hands survey or Dr Lusk’s carefully planned survey, the results show us something we are experiencing around us. A Luddite approach to food seems to be our solution to everything. We want food that is natural and that has had minimal interaction with science and technology or any human for that matter. The problem is though; our good intentions stem from a romantic notion of this natural approach to food. It makes us indulge in terminologies like “farm to table” or “local” without truly comprehending what they represent. Unnaturally Delicious tells us we don’t have to have this “pick one” approach, and gives us a rundown of innovations and technologies that have helped improve our food system vastly, keeping the essentials in mind.

When food writer Rachel Laudan wrote her essay “In praise of Artificial Food,” she meant artificial food in its literal sense- “produced by humans and artfully created.”

“Why it is so little recognised that food is as much a human construction as clothing or housing is hard to say. No one advocates returning to ‘natural’ housing. What would that be, a shelter under an overhanging cliff? Perhaps it’s because the term food is so capacious, or better, imprecise, covering everything from farm products such as wheat to prepared dishes on the table.“- she writes.

If our definition of natural needs to be honed, so does our view of food that has been processed. Of course, I don’t mean to say that all processed food is good for us, but this generalized view of food has lead us to overlook significant technological advances which have made our food safer, easier to consume and in some cases better. Unnaturally Delicious talks about such innovations from academicians and students. For, eg, Dr Lusk writes about two undergraduate students from Hong Kong who are working on a unique solution to fight obesity. By modifying the existing gut bacteria to process some of the fat in the food, these students are hoping to ensure this fat does land up in places where it leads to trouble.  As Dr Lusk writes –“Can synthetic biology solve some of our food problems even if we don’t want to eat genetically engineered superbugs? You bet.“

The book also discusses the importance of genetic engineering in biofortification. We might not be able to understand the impact of micronutrient deficiencies entirely, but when we are presented with facts like  40% of preschool students in developing countries are anaemic, and that anaemia contributes to 20% of maternal deaths in these regions, we realize that we need solutions which are effective immediately. Conventional breeding methods, the book elaborates, can take anywhere from seven to seventeen generations depending on the crops to get similar results.

“The nutrient-rich biotech crops could arguably do much more good in the world than the original pesticide-resistant crops, but many of the entrepreneurs and inventors who have developed the biofortified crops lack the legal teams, political power and financial resources to clear the regulatory hurdles.” 

Unnaturally Delicious also gives us an insight into the field of food safety,3-D printing, precision agriculture, sustainability and consumer behaviour. For all our talk about sustainability and choosing the right products, how many of us are actually willing to spend on products that matter. Turns out- not many.

Unnaturally Delicious sets a hopeful tone in this era of Dr Lusk calls as “cultural food pessimism.” In my own interactions with food entrepreneurs, I have found innovation at the heart of solving key issues in the food system. Beer from leftover bread or snacks that help support farming communities in drought areas- many entrepreneurs have managed to create exciting products where it might seem unlikely. So what would a hopeful food future look like?

“A more optimistic and hopeful food future is one in which people are empowered to use creativity, intellect and determined experimentation to solve today’s problems and fashion the type of future they desire. It is a future in which scientists and farmers are free to innovate and consumers are free to adopt the innovations (or not).” 

For more information visit Jayson Lusk’s website http://jaysonlusk.com/.