Hey Andrew, I recently read the book Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner for a class I am taking called People in the Environment. Considering that the topic of the course is “Eating Industrial”, it is no surprise that we read this book as it describes the processed-food industry in great detail. Throughout the book, Warner recounts her experiences with the food industry, conversations with representatives from a variety of food-related business and industries, and visits to a variety of food plants and expositions. As a journalist, Warner conducts many small food experiments in her home as a way of non-scientifically determining what happens to processed foods after their expiration dates. Though it began as a way for her to observe what foods actually goes bad at their printed expiration date, throughout the novel she also uses these experiments as a way to evaluate the “realness” of foods. At one point, her elderly mother mistakenly eats from a tub of guacamole that had been sitting in the fridge for a whopping nine months. Surprisingly, she did not get sick, probably due to the mysterious ingredients such as “text-instant” and “amigum” (Warner 97). Her food experiments reminded me of all the times Ian has left his old fast food and Little Caesars pizzas in the fridge for months at a time. Looking at those three month old slices of pizza, they show no sign of decay except for maybe looking a little dried up. I wonder what would happen if you were to accidentally have a bite of one of those ancient slices… It’s actually somewhat likely you may be fine after eating some old fast food. According to Warner, fast food chains such as Taco Bell and Subway load up their foods with white and beige powders that serve all kinds of purposes, most notably as preservatives. It is estimated that a Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich is made up of 55 different types of powdered ingredients (Warner 11). Fortunate for us vegetarians, most of these are found in the meat and its glaze. I know you like to stick to foods that come out of the ground, and it turns out you may have good reason to. According to a study done by Pew Charitable Trusts, there are over five thousand additives that are currently being used in our foods (Warner 105). Not only are these additives being used, the United States government is doing little to monitor what they are or what effects they have on human health. These additives are approved for consumption not by any unbiased agency, but by the company selling the new substance. The FDA simply has to be notified that the additives are “Generally Recognized as Safe”; because of this only four new substances have actually been reviewed for use by the FDA since the year 2000 (Warner 107). This was shocking to me, because I was always under the impression that the FDA carefully restricted what things are going into food products sold in the United States. It surprised me just as much to learn in the documentary Food Inc. that the USDA acts in a similar manner when it comes to regulation of meat production. It makes me interested in learning more about the home-grown and locally-foraged foods you’re always raving about. One thing I disliked about this book was it seemed the author has a preconceived bias against processed foods and science that accompanies them. She frequently describes the chemicals used in food-related processes using the roles they serve in other industries as way of depicting them as dangerous. For example, the hydrochloric acid used in soybean processing is described as also being used to remove rust from metals and dissolve rock to access petroleum (Warner 153). Similarly, sodium hydroxide is referred to as an active ingredient in Drano (Warner 154). These descriptions are supposed to instill a negative perception of these processes in the reader’s mind with no real discussion of the human health impact of these products. Being an environmental engineering student, I couldn’t help but become irritated when she would illustrate about these “disfiguring chemically induced alterations”(Warner 156) used in food processing without any description of dose-response assessments for these additives or their not-so-scary sounding applications. Though I do not doubt that these additives likely are not healthy for human consumption, I wish more explanation as to why had been provided as to why. Overall, Warner concludes that the responsibility of food health and safety falls on the consumer. After all, the consumer supposedly has complete control over supply and demand; if we stop asking for Cheetos they will stop making them, right? She tries to demonstrate this by telling an anecdotal story of a family of six who cut unhealthy food from their diets and see amazing health benefits. The Struckmeier family is relieved of health ailments such as chronic constipation, inexplicable behavioral issues, and heartburn (Warner 212). This story of healing through food, was also conveyed by the documentary Forks over Knives, which told the tale of two doctors discovering the extraordinary benefits of eating healthily. Though I don’t doubt this family experienced a dramatic change in health from cutting out fast food and Doritos from their daily diets, the message Warner was trying to convey by telling their story didn’t sit quite right with me. I enjoyed the book in the sense that it was beneficial in educating readers about the actual nutrition of many foods but I also feel as though her conclusion that the nutrition of the foods we consume is solely the consumer’s responsibility is not completely reasonable. Manipulation of consumers by false advertising and a false sense of security from the FDA, lack of readily available information for consumers about the true nutrition of products, and a persistent lack of access to cheap, easy to prepare whole foods for many people in urban communities also have a major effect on what consumers are purchasing. Because of these factors, I think some of the fault can be put on the food companies. I really think you would enjoy this book because of both your interest in nutrition and your scientific background. If you do give it a read, let me know what you think!