While having a conversation with my brother, Nick, I mentioned that fact that while recently at the General Mills plant here in Cedar Rapids, I saw the heavily reinforced doors that contained the "guns" that make Cheerios the delightfully crispy, tasty cereal that we know and love. I also mentioned the fact that the doors also had just about every industrial warning I have ever seen; live steam, confined spaces, pinch points and high voltage.From comments he made, I feel that it is my duty to tell you what I know about food.
If you are buying food that comes in a box, it has never been put on a pan and baked in an oven. It has never been mixed by hand and it especially never be mixed with love. In fact, there is a very good chance, that that only time it was ever touched by human hands was once the box of food was taken off a conveyor belt and put into a larger box (yes, this operation is done by hand, mostly).
I'm not sure what else I can say to you, food that comes in a box is food that has has its production run over with a fine tooth comb making it the fastest, most efficient process possible. And in accomplishing this feat, companies eliminate humans and replace them with gigantic (sometimes 4 story tall) machines that produce food faster than one can really imagine. In doing so, one must remove anything resembling a cooking process you could come close to reproducing in your kitchen. Once again I will default to Cheerios:
Cheerios are made from oat flour and some other ingredients, such as sugar, salt, and starch. The dry ingredients are mixed with water and formed into small, hard circles by cooking and forcing through dies. The small circles are partially dried and then puffed by heating with steam in a cylinder under pressure, then allowed to release from the high pressure to atmospheric pressure [This process is called firing the gun]. This causes the circles to expand as water inside turns to steam. The puffed pieces are further dried, then vitamins and minerals are sprayed on and they are dried again.This website seems to have everything right, although it doesn't really capture the scale of the event. The dies (and associated equipment) in question are about the size of a large diesel generator, while the guns are a similar size. These pieces, as well as the associated mixers, driers, baggers and boxers are working at a rate to product several boxes a second (the line I was looking at was approximately three boxes a second).
While my brother might have issues with this state of food production, I love it. I think it is great that the Cheerios I buy here taste exactly the same as the Cheerios I buy on the east coast or even buy in Europe (I don't know if they sell Cheerios in Europe, but if they do, they are made exactly the same way). I also like the fact that such industrialized food has practically eliminated the chances of finding someone else's hair in my bowl of cereal. And here is where I draw the line.
When I go shopping for a box of food, I'm not looking for the freshest, and I'm not looking for an artisan crafted product. I'm looking for one thing, for the product in the box to be the closest approximation of the food pictured on the box possible. But if I'm looking for a product where freshness is important, or you want something that takes skill to craft, don't go looking for it in a box.
(Editor's note; the word "box" can be replaced by tub, tube, carton, tin, can, etc.)
Posts
3 comments:
To be clear: I'm am not surprised or disappointed that making Cheerios (or any other packaged food) is an industrial process. And the process of making three boxes of cereal per second is an amazing feat of the industrial age.
I love Cheerios and many other packaged products and am thankful that they have been faithfully reproduced without deviation in size, texture and flavor for decades.
My argument all along is that there is a difference between the reality the realities of industrial food production and consumer expectations, whether dry goods, meat or produce.
These realities are, generally, kept away from the consuming public for a variety of reasons, including safety (we can't have little kids trouncing around food factories on tours) and image (right or wrong, consumers' perception of Cheerios would change if, instead of fields of wheat, the box had images of a factory, a setting much more integral to the nature of Cheerios).
If we want to allow people to make choices about what they eat — and I think we do — we should expect them to be able to make informed choices.
Informed choices means education or, at the very least, making this information easily available. Quickly googling "cheerios production," "how do they make cheerios," "cheerios making" and "cheerios making production" yielded no readily available information of the production process. (Well, there was this answer to "How do you make Cheerios?":
"buy cheerios, get a bowl, get milk, get a spoon
Put cheerios in the bowl
pour milk evenly onto cheerios
let cool for 10-30 seconds
Eat with spoon
Enjoy!!!")
Thank you for the post, Sam.
While I understand your point, I take exception to the idea that industrial food production is the alone in it's careful crafting and protection of their image.
Farmers who raise organic meat don't want their product associated with the thrashing pig as it bleeds out, but instead use photos of cute young pigs enjoying sunny fields.
And crop farmers really don't want you to think about the blood meal, bone meal and manure used to produce their crops which are made out of boiled blood, process animal bones and... you get the point.
The point I guess I am trying to make is that all food production has an ugly side that the producers would prefer you not to see, and while industrial food production might have more of it, it isn't alone.
On the other hand, I agree that the amount of information available isn't nearly enough. Not only does General Mills not list how a Cheerio is made (even with the vaguest of details), they don't list where they are made either.
I'm not singling out Cheerios, just using your example.
Everyone is careful about protecting their image. Ridiculous example: Matel doesn't tell you where the wood for Tinkertoys comes from or that it will put splinters in your hands.
That's why it's important for us to learn about where our food comes from. Without disclosure laws or something, no food company is going to do that for us.
Post a Comment