The Secret History of Food

by Matt Siegel

  8. tomatoes weren’t poisonous: Matt Blitz, “How Witches and Expensive Dishes Stopped People from Eating Tomatoes,” Food and Wine, July 31, 2017, https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/how-witches-and-expensive-dishes-stopped-people-eating-tomatoes.

  9. Solanum lycopersicum: “Lycopersicum,” Johnson’s Gardener’s Dictionary, edited by C. H. Wright and D. Dewar (London: George Bell & Sons, 1894), 582.

  10. Wolfspfirsich: Rolf H. J. Schlegel, History of Plant Breeding (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2018), Kindle ed.

  11. tomato crops infested: Smith, The Tomato in America, 58.

  12. causing them to leach: Ibid., 59.

  13. “sour trash”: Ibid., 41–42.

  14. they were once thought: E. J. Kahn, Jr., The Staffs of Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), 111.

  15. bearing a resemblance to: Tom Standage, An Edible History of Humanity (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), Apple Books ed.

  16. “the Devil’s apples”: Kahn, The Staffs of Life, 109.

  17. caused mothers to bear children: Ibid., 111.

  18. growing potato plants: Ibid., 110.

  19. wearing potato flowers: Ibid., 113.

  20. widespread famine and crop failures: Standage, An Edible History of Humanity.

  21. “were threatened with forty lashes”: Ibid.

  22. Friedrich Wilhelm I threatened: Kahn, The Staffs of Life, 90.

  23. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier took: Standage, An Edible History of Humanity.

  24. per capita annual consumption: “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability—Vegetables,” Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System, US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, September 23, 2020.

  25. led largely by French fries: “Potatoes and Tomatoes Are the Most Commonly Consumed Vegetables,” US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, August 28, 2019.

  26. the consumption of onions: Ibid.

  27. is only about nine pounds: “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability—Vegetables.”

  28. consumption of corn: “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability—Grains,” “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability—Sugar and sweeteners (added),” Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System, US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, January 5, 2021.

  29. “death by fruit”: Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat (New York: Basic Books, 2015), Kindle ed.

  30. a 1569 ban: Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain through Its Cooking (New York: Bloomsbury, 2007), 107.

  31. it was common practice: Terence Scully, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1995), 20.

  32. they were rebranded: G. Bruce Knecht, Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006), 9.

  33. they’re neither technically a bass: Ibid.

  34. many come from waters: “Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides),” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, www.fao.org/3/y5261e/y5261e09.htm.

  35. 579 metric tons in 1979: “Global Capture Production for Species (Tonnes)” graph, “Species Fact Sheets: Dissostichus eleginoides (Smitt, 1898),” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO FishStat.

  36. when they were known: Paul Greenberg, “The Catch,” New York Times, October 23, 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/magazine/the-catch.html.

  37. more than 44,000 tons in 1995: “Global Capture Production for Species (Tonnes).”

  38. The same thing happened: Jennifer L. Jacquet and Daniel Pauly, “Trade Secrets: Renaming and Mislabeling of Seafood,” Marine Policy 32, no. 3 (2008): 309–18.

  39. “whore’s eggs”: Christa Weil, “More than One Way to Crack an Urchin” in Eggs in Cookery: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2006, edited by Richard Hosking (Devon, UK: Prospect, 2007), 266.

  40. “Today’s seafood is often”: David A. Fahrenthold, “Unpopular, Unfamiliar Fish Species Suffer From Become Seafood,” Washington Post, July 31, 2009.

  41. “spaghetti plantations”: “Is This the Best April Fool’s Ever?,” BBC News, March 31, 2014.

  42. where they could buy: “On This Day: 1 April 1957: BBC Fools the Nation,” BBC News.

  43. In the 1980s: Elizabeth Green, “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?,” New York Times Magazine, July 23, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html.

  44. lawmakers in West Virginia: Nathan Takitch, “DHHR: Results Inconclusive in Raw Milk Investigation,” WSAZ NewsChannel 3, March 8, 2016.

  45. among them: “Raw (Unpasteurized) Milk,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/features/rawmilk/index.html.

  46. Scott Cadle: Eric Eyre and David Gutman, “Agency Investigates Lawmaker Who Distributed Raw Milk to Celebrate Bill Passage,” Charleston Gazette-Mail, March 8, 2016.

  47. “It didn’t have”: Jonathan Mattise, “Lawmakers Celebrate Raw Milk, Deny Being Sickened by It,” Associated Press, March 9, 2016.

  48. “It ain’t because”: Eyre and Gutman, “Agency Investigates Lawmaker Who Distributed Raw Milk to Celebrate Bill Passage.”

  49. he flushed the remainder: Eric Eyre, “Results of Raw Milk Inquiry at WV Capitol Inconclusive, DHHR Says.”

  50. a twenty-page pamphlet: “Nutrition and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” US Department of Agriculture, February 1980.

  51. Their 2015 guidelines: 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, US Department of Agriculture, January 7, 2016.

  52. “The U.S. has joined”: “New Dietary Guidelines Remove Daily Limit on Cholesterol and Include Eggs in Recommended Eating Patterns,” press release, American Egg Board, January 7, 2016.

  53. “makes more than enough”: 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 32.

  54. Appendix 3, Table A3-1: Ibid., 79–82.

  55. Appendix 2, Table A2-1: Ibid., 77–78.

  56. Appendix 4, Table A4-1: Ibid., 83–85.

  57. One large egg, for example: Ibid., 19.

  58. an egg has to weigh: “Specifications for Shell Eggs: A ‘How to’ Guide for Food Service Suppliers and Volume Food Buyers,” US Department of Agriculture, November 10, 2017, 4.

  59. 4 ounces of pork: 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 19.

  60. still about 300 milligrams: Ibid., 32.

  61. they’re simultaneously charged: Marion Nestle, What to Eat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), Apple Books ed.

  62. The USDA is responsible: “Exhibit 3-1: FDA/USDA Jurisdiction,” Investigations Operations Manual 2021, US Food and Drug Administration, 2021.

  63. while the FDA is responsible: Ibid.

  64. fish other than catfish: “FDA Transfers Siluriformes Fish Inspection to USDA,” US Food and Drug Administration, constituent update, May 2, 2016.

  65. The division of eggs: “Exhibit 3-1: FDA/USDA Jurisdiction.”

  66. roughly 78 percent: “Fact Sheet: FDA at a Glance,” US Food and Drug Administration, November 2020.

  67. the FDA oversees: Ibid.

  68. the use of medicinal maggots: Bob Carlson, “Crawling Through the Millennia: Maggots and Leeches Come Full Circle,” Biotechnology Healthcare 3, no. 1 (2006): 14–17.

  69. go more than five years: The Role and Performance of FDA in Ensuring Food Safety (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2012), 67.

  70. a much larger percentage: Neal D. Fortin, Food Regulation: Law, Science, Policy, and Practice (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011).

  71. “48 million people”: “Burden of Foodborne Illness: Overview,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 5, 2018.

  72. “so opaque or confusing”: Barbara Presley Noble, “All About/Product Labeling; After Years of Deregulation, a New Push to Inform the Public,” New York Times, October 27, 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/10/27/business/all-about-product-labeling-after-years-deregulation-new-push-inform-public.html.

  73. research tends to negate this: F. De Alzaa, C. Guillaum
e, and L. Ravetti, “Evaluation of Chemical and Physical Changes in Different Commercial Oils During Heating,” Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 2, no. 6 (2018): 2–11.

  74. an ability to lower: “Olive Oil 101: Health and Nutrition,” California Olive Oil Council, www.cooc.com/health-nutrition.

  75. analysts estimate: Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2016), 91.

  76. “virtually every investigation”: Ibid.

  77. Fredrick Accum warned: Fredrick Accum, A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons (London: Mallett, 1820), 334–35.

  78. an estimated ten thousand: Spencer D. Segalla, Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France Since 1954 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020), 78.

  79. turned out to be machine oil: Richard Lorant, “Mass Poisoning in Spain Still Steeped in Mystery,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1991.

  80. faking its graded virginity: Rodney J. Mailer and Stefan Gafner, “Adulteration of Olive (Olea europaea) Oil,” Botanical Adulterants Prevention Bulletin, Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program, October 2020.

  81. there’s a lot of methylmercury: Nestle, What to Eat.

  82. high levels of omega-3: Peter Wehrwein, “High Intake of Omega-3 Fats Linked to Increased Prostate Cancer Risk,” Harvard Health Blog, Harvard Medical School, August 1, 2013.

  83. “that growes upon”: Henry Butts, Dyets Dry Dinner (London: Creede, 1599).

  84. which was mostly a precaution: Joanna Klein, “Oysters, Despite What You’ve Heard, Are Always in Season,” New York Times, May 5, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/science/oysters-summer-safe-r-months.html.

  85. as Anthony Bourdain advised: Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (New York: Bloomsbury, 2000), 64–65.

  86. Bourdain revised: “Anthony Bourdain Tells Us It’s OK to Eat Fish on Mondays Now—Here’s Why,” Business Insider, October 31, 2016.

  87. “To make an intelligent choice”: Nestle, What to Eat.

  88. two high school girls: John Schwartz, “A Fish Story with a DNA Hook,” New York Times, August 22, 2008, A1.

  89. collected 142 fish samples: Kimberly Warner, Walker Timme, and Beth Lowell, “Widespread Seafood Fraud Found in New York City,” Oceana, December 2012.

  90. “ex-lax fish”: Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food, 48.

  91. contains toxins: Fish and Fishery Products: Hazards and Controls Guidance, 4th ed., Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Office of Food Safety, March 2020, 6–2.

  92. “women who are”: Warner et al., “Widespread Seafood Fraud Found in New York City.”

  93. In 2007, samples: “Tetrodotoxin,” Bad Bug Book: Handbook of Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins, US Food and Drug Administration, 2012.

  94. an Inside Edition investigation: “A Third of Tested Restaurant Lobster Dishes Actually Contain Cheaper Seafood, Investigation Shows,” Inside Edition, February 8, 2016, www.insideedition.com/headlines/14518-a-third-of-tested-restaurant-lobster-dishes-actually-contain-cheaper-seafood-investigation-shows.

  95. Meanwhile, a lot of restaurants: “Lobstermen Seeing Red over Langostinos,” NPR, October 27, 2006, www.npr.org/transcripts/6394216.

  96. “As a seafood expert”: “A Third of Tested Restaurant Lobster Dishes Actually Contain Cheaper Seafood, Investigation Shows.”

  97. In 1499, King Henry VII: J. Lawrence-Hamilton, “Fish Frauds,” The Lancet 2, November 16, 1889, 1024–25.

  98. “as to make skinny”: Ibid.

  99. stuffing fresh haddock: Ibid.

  100. plugging the holes: George Smeeton, Doings in London; Or, Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities, of the Metropolis (Southwark, UK: Smeeton, 1828), 141.

  101. in 1272, Edward I: J. Lawrence-Hamilton, “Ice Spoils Fish,” The Lancet 2, September 21, 1889, 614–16.

  102. Corrupt vendors who were caught: J. Lawrence-Hamilton, “‘Fish’ and ‘Fish’ Inspection,” Public Health, the Journal of the Incorporated Society of Medical Officers of Health, 6, no. 1 (1893): 20–21.

  103. nearly half of the advertised weight: “Have Some Oranges with That Liquid,” Consumer Reports, February 2013, www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/02/have-some-oranges-with-that-liquid/index.htm.

  104. frozen chicken breasts: Felicity Lawrence, “Supermarkets Selling Chicken That Is Nearly a Fifth Water,” The Guardian, December 6, 2013, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/supermarket-frozen-chicken-breasts-water.

  105. taken by more than half: “Poll Finds 86% of Americans Take Vitamins or Supplements Yet Only 21% Have a Confirmed Nutritional Deficiency,” American Osteopathic Association, January 16, 2019.

  106. orange juice with added calcium: “Tropicana Pure Premium® Calcium + Vitamin D (No Pulp),” Tropicana, www.tropicana.com/products/pure-premium/no-pulp-calcium-vitamin-d.

  107. healthy heart orange juice: “Tropicana Pure Premium® Healthy Heart,” Tropicana, www.tropicana.com/products/pure-premium/healthy-heart.

  108. vitamin C and zinc orange juice: “Tropicana Pure Premium® Vitamin C + Zinc (No Pulp),” Tropicana, https://www.tropicana.com/products/trop50/vitamin-c-zinc-no-pulp-trop50.

  109. pineapple mango juice with probiotics: “Tropicana Essentials® Pineapple Mango Probiotics,” Tropicana, www.tropicana.com/products/tropicana-essentials/pineapple-mango-tep.

  110. apple cherry juice with fiber: “Tropicana Essentials® Apple Cherry Fiber,” Tropicana, www.tropicana.com/products/tropicana-essentials/apple-cherry-fiber.

  111. Dannon makes probiotic yogurt: “Probiotic Yogurt,” Activia, www.activia.us.com/probiotic-yogurt.

  112. cotton candy–flavored smoothies: “Cotton Candy Smoothie,” Dannon Company, http://danimals.com/kids-yogurt-and-smoothies/kids-smoothies/cotton-candy.

  113. Nestlé even has: “Fortification: It’s All About Defenses!,” Nestlé, www.nestle-cereals.com/me/en/ingredients/our-cereal-ingredients/fortified-cereals.

  114. “We believe”: “Nestlé Nesquik: Nourishing Possibility,” Nestlé, www.nestle-cereals.com/global/en/nesquikr.

  115. one study published: Theodore M. Brasky, Emily White, and Chi-Ling Chen, “Long-Term, Supplemental, One-Carbon Metabolism-Related Vitamin B Use in Relation to Lung Cancer Risk in the Vitamins and Lifestyle (VITAL) Cohort,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 35, no. 30 (2017): 3440–48.

  116. Another study found: Alice Park, “Vitamins and Supplements Linked to Higher Risk of Death,” Time, October 11, 2011, https://healthland.time.com/2011/10/11/vitamins-and-supplements-linked-to-higher-risk-of-death-in-older-women.

  117. large doses of vitamin B: Shawn Bishop, “Take Vitamin Supplements with Caution: Some May Actually Cause Harm,” Mayo Clinic, January 4, 2013, https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/take-vitamin-supplements-with-caution-some-may-actually-cause-harm.

  118. too much calcium and vitamin D: “The Truth About Heart Vitamins and Supplements,” Johns Hopkins Medicine, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-truth-about-heart-vitamins-and-supplements.

  119. a 2014 analysis: “How Much Is Too Much? Excess Vitamins and Minerals in Food Can Harm Kids’ Health,” Environmental Working Group, June 2014, www.ewg.org/research/how-much-is-too-much.

  120. “a non-profit, non-partisan organization”: “About Us,” Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org/about-us.

  121. “woefully outdated”: “How Much Is Too Much? Excess Vitamins and Minerals in Food Can Harm Kids’ Health,” 3.

  122. A 2015 investigation: “A.G. Schneiderman Asks Major Retailers to Halt Sales of Certain Herbal Supplements as DNA Tests Fail to Detect Plant Materials Listed on Majority of Products Tested,” New York State Office of the Attorney General, February 3, 2015, https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2015/ag-schneiderman-asks-major-retailers-halt-sales-certain-herbal-suppleme
nts-dna.

  123. Other studies have found: Gerry Schwalfenberg, Ilia Rodushkin, and Stephen J. Genuis, “Heavy Metal Contamination of Prenatal Vitamins,” Toxicology Reports 5 (2018): 390–95.

  Index

  A specific form of pagination for this digital edition has been developed to match the print edition from which the index was created. If the application you are reading this on supports this feature, the page references noted in this index should align. At this time, however, not all digital devices support this functionality. Therefore, we encourage you to please use your device’s search capabilities to locate a specific entry.