Embark on a culinary journey back in time to explore the origins of processed foods. Unearth the historical context that led to their creation, and discover how these early innovations have shaped our modern food landscape.
How did processed food become associated with unhealthy food?
From the moment one innovative ancient human decided to cook meat on a fire 400,000 years ago, to the advent of agriculture 10-15 millennia ago, people have processed foods
- The early history of food processing was both useful and tasty
- Cooking adds flavour and softens foods, making root vegetables and legumes easier to chew and extract nutrients
- Fermentation, milling and baking make foods more nutritionally available and easier to digest
Should we be swapping more refined sugars for those that occur naturally, such as the fructose found in fruit?
Today, added sugar contributes to a lot of the health problems that people associate with processed foods (they account for more than 10% of people’s total calories).
- Much of the sugar is there to cheaply bulk out the processed food.
- Sugars are used in large quantities by the food industry to give flavour to foods that have had their intrinsic flavours processed out of them and to mask any unpleasant flavours in the final product.
The 4th Earl of Sandwich
He is perhaps best-known for lending his name to two slices of bread with a filling in between
Food is more than the sum of the nutrients they contain
Even when nutrients are added back in, like cereals fortified with iron or fibre, food might not be as healthy as it seems
- Added nutrients don’t work as well as those found in whole foods
- Phytochemicals, flavonoids, polyphenols have the health benefits
In search of a way to make stale freshwater more palatable, Sandwich turned to chemist Joseph Priestley.
In a 1772 pamphlet, Priestley described a 15-minute method of producing a vessel of “water impregnated with fixed air [carbon dioxide]”.
- His belief that carbonated water (he called it “medicated water”) might prevent scurvy.
Coca-Cola: Origins
Chocolate originates from ancient Mesoamerica where cacao beans were brewed as a bitter-tasting hot drink.
- We know broadly how these hot chocolate drinks were prepared by analysing layers of residues absorbed on the insides of Ancient Maya pottery from AD250.
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Medicated waters
Early successes included tonic water infused with quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree, which acted as an antimalarial.
How did we get here?
The search for natural extracts with which to fortify sparkling drinks in the 19th century led to even more exotic medicated waters
- Various companies started to produce stimulating, caffeinated “cola” drinks with extracts from the kola nut
- Coca-Cola, flavoured with coca leaves, was first advertised as an “ideal brain tonic”
