An email to my mom discussing the book, Pandora's Lunchbox
Dear Mom, I am writing to you regarding a school assignment for my ISS 310 class, which discusses Industrial Eating. In this class we have just finished a novel called Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner. Our assignment is to reach out to someone about this book and to provide insight on what it is about. Pandora’s Lunchbox focuses on industrial foods including information on how it is made, the effects of consuming it and gives a closer look of what goes on in food processing factories. I chose to write to you in particular because although we eat relatively healthy in our house, I also don’t think our family is aware of how bad processed foods are. They rarely have any nutrition value and sometimes can negatively affect one’s health. I think our family could improve on some of our eating habits. I hope that you learn a thing or two about industrial food and that I may even inspire you to read Pandora’s Lunchbox! Warner starts off the book by explaining a variety of food experiments she has conducted at home regarding expiration dates. She kept a variety of foods for a tine span of six years including processed cheese, Pop Tarts, hot dogs, cereal, cookies, and many more (xiii). To her surprise almost none of these foods grew moldy or showed any sign of rotting. As a reader I was already intrigued, were these products even considered food? I later learned that the reason so many of these foods didn’t spoil is because they are packed with food additives. That then led to my next question; what is a food additive? Basically, a food additive is anything that is added to food in order to enhance the taste of the product, improve its appearance, or allow it to not spoil for quiet some time. In an article we read in class one food scientist explained that food additives and other techniques are used to find the ‘bliss point’ of food. This is a point when all the tastes and flavors truly come together so the consumer has the perfect eating experience. Even though that all sounds fine these food additives can have a variety of negative effects. A food scientist named Harvey Wiley was one of the first people to discover this. He conducted an experiment in which he fed a group of volunteers seven potentially harmful food additives for nine months to see how they affected their health (22). Many volunteers complained of stomachaches, headaches, vomiting, and a constant nausea. In the end, five of the seven substances were banned but two of them; potassium nitrate and sodium benzoate are still used today (30). Not only can processed foods contain harmful food additives, they can also be what Warner refers to as ‘empty calories’ (67). For example, most cereals have little, if any nutrition value. According to Robert Choate, a professor at Berkeley, most cereals “fatten but do little to prevent malnutrition” and are “empty calories” (68). This is also true for many processed foods such as chips, most granola bars, and snack cakes. Not only are these foods empty calories but they also rarely contain all the vitamins and minerals that they claim they do. In the food industry today most vitamins are produced, not naturally found in the products (81). When vitamins are made they don’t carry nearly as many health benefits with them compared to if they are naturally occurring (89). This is one of the reasons why the United States is one of the unhealthiest nations, regardless of being a nation with a high consumption rate of vitamins (86). Why is this important? Why did I choose to write to you in particular? I think it is very important for our family to know they are putting poison in their bodies when they consume processed foods. If staying away from food additives can buy us a few more years of healthy living then we need to throw out the chips and replace them with fresh carrots. Warner wrote of a specific family whose life changed after deciding to change their eating habits. The parent’s son, Cameron constantly complained of having an upset stomach, signs of depression and having little to no motivation to carry out the day (209). After replacing their normal dinners of fast food and frozen meals to homemade, healthy options Cameron’s life changed drastically. He was now a normal, happy teenager. Darcy, Cameron’s mother told Warner she will never go back to their old diet despite how easy and fast it may be (216). We also watched a film called Food Inc.; in this film it showed a family who was also negatively affected by processed foods. Almost everyone in the family was obese and the father suffered from diabetes. It is surprising to think just how much the food we eat affects our overall health. All of these specific details and stories about processed foods leads up to Warner’s big idea of Pandora’s Lunchbox; that our nation needs to start eating more foods grown closer to the ground (223). Warner understands that it is nearly impossible today to never eat any processed foods. However, if we are informed of the negative effects and harmful food additives in our food, maybe we will try a little harder to avoid them. Making little steps everyday to avoid processed foods may be very beneficial in the long run. I hope this email inspired you to remove processed foods from the shelves of our pantry and to make small strides to an overall healthier lifestyle. Love, Kylie Kamba