Food is a field that can be exploited easily, since most of the population relies on the food industry for nourishment, and startups have happily capitalized on this. In recent years, Silicon Valley has become one of the main generators of technological solutions, with a large sector focusing on the food industry. In the past decade, a number of technology companies have tackled issues like work/life balance, job specialisation, the rise of the gig-economy. These issues are reflected in a number of consumer products and services they provide, some of which attempt to reinvent the role of food in our lives.
The role of food in society is being questioned within the ideology emerging from Silicon Valley, through the means of meal replacements, deeming food obsolete.
The way we eat and think of food today is bound to change. The increasing demand for food, especially meat and dairy, combined with the increasingly damaging effects of climate change on agriculture (Cho, 2018), will push the food industry to reconsider its methods, and consumers their choices. Within this context, technology companies, the new actors on the food industry stage, are suggesting a solution, one that disregards food as being archaic, inefficient, and the practices around food production and preparation as time-wasters. Their solution, materialized in consumer products dubbed as 'complete foods', is backed up by huge financial support from venture capital, and regarded as the future of food. With this in mind, the research developed within this thesis is based on the following question: is food on a path towards becoming obsolete?
Silicon Valley's interpretation of food does not reflect the importance people place on it. The focus within this culture is on profit-driven innovation, while the cultural role of food, gender representation, or collective values associated with sharing food, are largely unrepresented. Instead, the emphasis is on the continuous quest to improve food products, within the value system of techno-solutionism. This system revolves around striving for perfection, maximum efficiency, and zero ambiguity, all unrepresentative of food culture. Evgeny Morozov, in his book *To Save Everything, Click Here* critically describes this value system, explaining that "this never-ending quest to ameliorate [...] is shortsighted and only perfunctorily interested in the activity for which improvement is sought" (Morozov, 2013). Considering these aspects, food will become increasingly commodified and products such as meal replacements, the materialization of techno-solutionism in food, will continue to be pushed by venture capital-funded corporations as an universal response to anything from time management, nutritional dilemmas, food waste and sustainability.
@ -43,15 +41,17 @@ As both men and women have been finding their place within the workforce, sharin
Today, technology corporations offer us more options. Rather than sharing the work more equally, both the mental load and the actual chores can be automated, to some extent, through technological solutions. No longer framed explicitly as women's work, but continuing to be (de)valued as such, tasks such as cooking can be facilitated through various apps. From a tool of oppression directed at women, food becomes a task delegated to gig workers by startups and other corporations.
Regarding food as a tool of oppression has opened the way for many solutions, some more realistic than others. The automation of food and cooking has been a recurrent topic of conversation and space for imagination in both within social movements, and in popular culture.
## A meal in a pill
When the amount of chores one has to do as an adult takes up a considerable amount of time, it doesn't surprise me that most predictions about the future imagine all the various ways technology will change the way we do things now. Early retrofuturist ideas depict future humans in flying cars, interacting with robots, or with superhuman abilities. They no longer waste time on daily tasks, since most things can be achieved with the press of a button. One aspect that keeps coming back, though, is the issue of food. No matter how advanced future humans will be, they will always have to eat, and the food has to be prepared by someone or something.
When the amount of chores one has to do as an adult takes up a considerable amount of time, it doesn't surprise me that most predictions about the future imagine ways in which technology will change the way we do things now. Early retrofuturist ideas depict future humans in flying cars, interacting with robots, or with superhuman abilities. They no longer waste time on daily tasks, since most things can be achieved with the press of a button. One aspect that keeps coming back, though, is the issue of food. No matter how advanced future humans will be, they will always have to eat, and the food has to be prepared by someone or something.
One of the first mentions of a solution to the division of labour in the kitchen came in a dystopian novella written in the late 19th century. The author was a conservative woman called Anna Bowman Dodd, an avid critic of the women's emancipation movement. In *The Republic of the Future*, she imagines a transformed New York in the year 2050, governed by socialists and feminists, seen through the eyes of a Swedish aristocrat called Wolfgang. The man writes home to his friend and describes the life of future New Yorkers as joyless and bland. He blames the situation on a couple of developments such as equality between sexes, reduced labor hours and abolishing of class society.
One aspect of life that comes up is food, provided not by kitchens, but personalized by scientists in the Office of Hygiene. In this future, food has been reduced to pellets or liquids transported to every home through pneumatic tubes, convenient enough to be taken in one's pocket and eaten on the go. The explanation for this development, that the author finds quite outrageous, is women's liberation. "If kitchens and cooking and long dinners hadn't been abolished, the final emancipation of women could never have been accomplished. [...] When the last pie was made into the first pellet, woman's true freedom began" (Dodd, 1887). Thus, the first idea of meal replacements as alternatives to time-consuming activities such as cooking appears, notably as a criticism, a ridiculous solution brought about by outrageous feminists who try to ruin everything that's fun in life.
In Dodd's work, food is provided not by kitchens, but personalized by scientists in the Office of Hygiene. In this future, food has been reduced to pellets or liquids transported to every home through pneumatic tubes, convenient enough to be taken in one's pocket and eaten on the go. The explanation for this development, that the author finds quite outrageous, is women's liberation. "If kitchens and cooking and long dinners hadn't been abolished, the final emancipation of women could never have been accomplished. [...] When the last pie was made into the first pellet, woman's true freedom began" (Dodd, 1887). Thus, the first idea of meal replacements as alternatives to time-consuming activities such as cooking appears, notably as a criticism, a ridiculous solution brought about by outrageous feminists who try to ruin everything that's fun in life.
Soon after, another futurist food reference was introduced. This came in Mary Lease's essay, a suffragette feminist from the late 19th century (Roodeburg, 2018). In her work, commissioned for World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, she envisioned the future of food 100 years from then. In her view, cooking was a chore that first wave feminists wanted to leave behind. Thus, in 1993, the future was supposed to look like this:
@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ Representations of food in the future are typically bleak. Regardless of it bein
As mentioned in the previous examples, we can identify a number of attempts to improve the situation of those forced in labour. Throughout history, the work associated with food production and preparation was recognized as being oppressive, and the suggested solutions involved either the need to make food obsolete, or to conceal the labour from the eyes of society. When cooking and the food itself are objects of mystery, their role is society is also heavily diminished.
As mentioned in the previous examples, we can identify a number of attempts to improve the work situation of those who produce and prepare food. Throughout history, the work associated with food was recognized as being oppressive, and the suggested solutions involved either the need to make food obsolete, or to conceal the labour from the eyes of society. When cooking and the food itself are objects of mystery, their role is society is also heavily diminished.
## The value of time in the post-mom economy
@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ Technology startups did not invent meal replacements, nor fortified foods. These
Today, companies which produce and sell meal replacements and other innovative food products put forward a number of health claims, including complete nutrition, better concentration, disease prevention, etc. But the lack of unaffiliated long-term scientific studies, and the association with nutritionists that sit on the board of directors are bound to raise suspicion. The fact that the food industry is able to make such claims can be traced back to the 90s, when the United States Congress passed a couple of laws, FDAMA (Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act) and DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act), which gave more freedom to the food and supplements industries to introduce new substances into their products without much pushback from the Food and Drug Administration (Nestle, 2013).
Looking at food as simply fuel for the body means completely disregarding the entire culture that has grown around food in every part of society. This phenomenon is described by Marion Nestle as reductionism, which, in this context, refers to reducing food to containers of nutrients. "Techno-foods offer a reductionist approach to choosing a healthful diet"(Nestle, pp 334) which only encourages food producers to come up with more and more products to sell to those who find this view appealing, or are confused regarding what foods are good for them. The above examples reveal that there there is a structural issue that has led to ultra-processed food products to appear on the market, under various health claims. This phenomenon is further exploited in the representation of what we perceive to be real food as an antiquated, and the push to promote processed products with a much higher market value, such as meal replacements.
Looking at food as simply fuel for the body means completely disregarding the entire culture that has grown around food in every part of society. This phenomenon is described by Marion Nestle as reductionism, which, in this context, refers to reducing food to containers of nutrients. "Techno-foods offer a reductionist approach to choosing a healthful diet"(ibid) which only encourages food producers to come up with more and more products to sell to those who find this view appealing, or are confused regarding what foods are good for them. The above examples reveal that there there is a structural issue that has led to ultra-processed food products to appear on the market, under various health claims. This phenomenon is further exploited in the representation of what we perceive to be real food as an antiquated, and the push to promote processed products with a much higher market value, such as meal replacements.
## The rise of meal replacements
@ -204,9 +204,7 @@ In my research, I looked at potentially fundamental changes in the role of food,
With accelerating levels of technological development, and increasingly destructive effects of climate change, the way we relate to the world is bound to change. In the next decades, these factors and others will greatly affect global food production. Some of the foods we are now used to eating will become harder to find and more expensive. Food is already becoming an even larger field of technological exploration and exploitation, with new ways of growing, producing, processing and distributing food being developed. Our options and preferences towards food will be even greatly influenced by technology companies, their products meaning to help us cope with these new circumstances, claiming to contribute to a better self in a better world, while catering only to the needs of the upper classes.
Increased life expectancy and health, something that Silicon Valley works hard towards **for their own people, find a way to express that**, arguably only increases the need for nourishment. Our bodies will still need nutrition from good food. The importance of communities and organisations that dedicate their work towards a more fair distribution of food, skills and knowledge will grow, faced with increasing levels of inequality. At the end of the day, we will have to take matters into our own hands and learn how to prepare and preserve our food, and how to share the labour and the meals more equally amongst ourselves and with others.
**make the argument clear**
Increased life expectancy and health , something that Silicon Valley works hard towards, arguably only increases the need for nourishment. Our bodies will still need nutrition from good food. The importance of communities and organisations that dedicate their work towards a more fair distribution of food, skills and knowledge will grow, faced with increasing levels of inequality. At the end of the day, we will have to take matters into our own hands and learn how to prepare and preserve our food, and how to share the labour and the meals more equally amongst ourselves and with others.
