The Dorito Effect

A fantastic quick read about flavor. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of animal studies and research into the combination of nutrition and flavor. I found the research narratives, and their interaction compelling...the stories about obesity less so. However, it makes sense that the book would be rooted in what might be an epidemic of overeating.

The footnotes and Appendix are nice as well. This is a great companion to other popular food books, like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma.

If you like food that tastes good or are interested in the science behind feed and nutrition, you'll probably like this one.

Another book about food! This one was fantastic. It is not about eating one way or another, instead the author does a great job of showing the reader how food has changed in recent history. He attributed the change with the advent of Doritos, because that was the point where artificial flavoring started to become more important than the actual food. Our bodies are now tricked into enjoying things that are not actual food with disastrous results. He also presented just how daunting it is to understand actual nutrition of real food, just how chemically complex plants are. We've scratched the surface of this understanding and what he said we've found is amazing, that certain chemicals that we find pleasurable are almost always found in nature along with some sort of essential nutrient.

I picked up this book because my library had it marked as sociology, it's not really sociology it's a glorified infomercial for diet culture.
There are interesting tidbits in this book, I really liked the part where the author talked about the efforts that are/were done to put flavor back into vegetables and meats. Unfortunately, these tidbits fell flat for me when the author insisted on talking about fatness at every turn even when it really was unwarranted (this book contains A LOT of extra words) or even seemed downright contradicted by the things he was saying.
He does something similar with class only in the other direction he only passingly acknowledges the impact of class on diet and access to the kind of food he pushes as the solution and then returns to saying that people only want cheap food. If someone has to work 2/3 jobs just to make rent where will they get the money for 20$ worth of veggies for a single meal if that kind of fresh food is even available to them to begin with (another thing that the author absolutely does not acknowledge is that farmer markets and even just quality fresh produce are not an option for everyone considering that food deserts are a thing)? It's not WANT it's necessity that pushes people to buy the cheapest food available he comes within an inch of acknowledging it but only in a “we don't have the resources to feed everyone well so it's only going to stay the rich that can eat well tough tiddies you poor poor food addicted fatties” kind of way.
All of this combined into a condescending mess about modern chicken being tasteless and “heirloom” tomatoes that are going to save us all lazy fat f*cks (only not really because there isn't enough for everyone).

Solid Look At A Topic Few Look At - Possibly Benefits From Me Reading It In Audible Form. I'll be upfront- this was one of my Audible books. Thus, I really have no way of knowing how extensive the bibliography is here, as Audibles never include them. And admittedly, this book *needs* an extensive one, as it makes quite a few quite remarkable claims- and remarkable claims necessitate remarkable documentation. But because I read the Audible and thus have no record of any biliiography for good or ill, I can't base my rating on something I did not see.

What I *did* see here was a solid look at concepts most - even myself - don't actively consider, and here Schatzker takes us on a detailed yet intriguing look behind the scenes and gets quite technical indeed... while never losing his readability (at least when having the book read to you). That alone is quite the feat for many science writers, and that he was able to pull this off so well is a mark of a stronger science writer.

Schatzker was also remarkably *balanced*, decrying Big Food and Big Ag for their efforts that led to blandness and loss of flavor over the last several decades while acknowledging that these same efforts are what has enabled humanity to continue to feed itself - and applauding these same groups' efforts to re-introduce flavor while maintaining as much modern yields as possible. Even here though, he does note - and *arguably* seem to take a touch of glee in - the idea that flavorful, more nutritious foods will always be a few multiples more expensive than more bland, less nutritious foods. Which yes, does allow at least a potential perception of classism, though I note here that I never really felt he was being classist so much as simply a gourmand passionate about truly great food. Indeed, the final pair of chapters, structured around his efforts at a "perfect meal" of sorts, brought the entire narrative together quite well while also being quite visceral in its love of both that meal and telling the tale of it.

Overall a truly intriguing book, and one that even 8 years after initial publication, as I write this review having read this book just this month, still needs to be widely read and... digested. Very much recommended.