ABSTRACT
Everything we eat has been grown, raised, or processed in some way. All of our food undergoes some transformation from its original state. Even the most ecologically attuned organic farming and ranching use technologies to alter plants or animals into food. We use simple technologies for slicing, cooking, and storing; complex ones for pasteurizing, freezing, and flavoring. On a scale from least to most processed, first comes raw food (especially organically grown), then whole food (sometimes cooked), then natural food (no artificial ingredients), and finally conventional food (often with artificial ingredients). What we eat and drink has always been technologically transformed to some degree. But does that mean that the very idea of a “natural food” is dubious if it always involves some human intervention? Can we speak meaningfully of natural and artificial foods if both involve at least some processing? Even if we grant the inevitability of technological mediation, what it is about high-tech processing like irradiation that makes it more controversial than something wholesome (but no less technological) like plowing? In short, what’s wrong with techno food, and is it really worse than natural food?
