unpackaged

I used to teach people about food labels and once up a time thought it important enough to impart the “useful” information on. Remember when the book came out about E numbers and drove us all mad checking for MSG disguised as a coded number on the back of packets? Eircodes for chemicals…

Occasionally I will check a food label in a local supermarket (just because) and to be honest I shudder at the contents. Ultimately if you have to read the labels then its probably not food at all, but an ultra processed version of something resembling it. With all the information crammed in there the script has got smaller and smaller. Reading glasses needed for food shopping?! Such effort involved in the journey to acquire food! Shopping has become a forensic science. No wonder it is exhausting and stressful! The reward? A toxic soup of chemical formulations that hardly nourishes.

It is local apple food season and the memories are evoked of childhood foraging from the neighbour’s orchard.  Our primal instinct to judge the safety and palatability of food has now been eroded by plastic, barcodes and fine print. It’s like having to crack a code to eat nowadays. One of the positive consequences of exposure to real food is having a multi-sensory experience of smells and aromas to greet us. Real foods (unpackaged) delight the senses in ways we need to remind ourselves of again.

​Anne Maher