Kami Kalandjian

Ms. Reynolds

English 113B

9 May 2012

Under Taste

Human beings have evolved to want the best of everything; the best car, house, clothes, and also food.  Food is a part of life; if humans don’t eat they die. And today people want the best tasting food. Most people don’t care whether the food is healthy or unhealthy for them as long as it tastes good. In the article “Why The Fries Taste Good,” author Eric Schlosser, talks about the scientists who are engineering new tastes for food to please the human palette. There is a problem with this; most foods today are processed and, these foods have a lot of added flavor to make them taste better. Sacrificing health for great taste it is the popular trend today. 

The human body is a very complex organism down to the last detail. And the human tongue is an incredible organ by itself. It is the strongest muscle in the human body and it has the power to taste.  On the tongue there are thousands of taste buds called papillae these papillae are nerve like cells that are also are connected to the brain. Whenever food touches the tongue, the papillae send signals to the brain telling the body whether it tastes good or not (WebMD).  Back when man was first roaming the earth, he was using his “sense of taste as a way to avoid being poisoned” (Schlosser).  Plants that are safe to eat generally taste sweet and plants that taste bitter are usually deadly (Schlosser).  I think this appeals to pathos because humans today are on the verge of losing their ability to tell the difference between what is real and what is fabricated. 

According to Schlosser in “Why The Fries Taste Good” the taste of food is very important to the producer and the consumer. At first glance the purchase of a food product is based by its package or appearance, but for consecutive purchases it is all about the taste.  These succeeding purchases can also be loosely defined as being addictive.  This appeals to logos because it is factual information by showing the strategies that companies use to attract their customers and keep them. 

For a long time McDonalds has been known for how good their french fries taste.  It started before the 1990s, when McDonalds was using a mixture of 7 percent cottonseed oil and 93 percent beef tallow to fry their french fries in. The definition of beef tallow is basically beef fat.  This mixture gave the fries their distinctive taste.  During the 1980s, McDonalds was getting a lot of bad press because their fries had such a high level of cholesterol. So after 1990, McDonalds switched over to pure vegetable oil, but the fries didn’t taste the same.  So McDonalds had to come up with a way to make the fries taste the same and they did that by adding chemicals and “natural flavors” (Schlosser).  This also appeals to logos because it is information about McDonalds and how they decided to fix their taste problem.  I think it also appeals to pathos because I think it is disgusting that they are trying to mimic a taste that contained 93 percent fat in the flavor.  And they are using chemicals that are bad for you to mimic those flavors.  This also appeals ethos because it shows Schlosser’s creditably about this topic.

Our bodies are being tricked by processed foods. Today food companies claim  their products contain “natural flavors.” Schlosser talks about flavor additives and one example he gives is Burger King’s Broiler Chicken Breast Patty.  This chicken patty contains “natural smoked flavor” which is true, but it means something totally different. The flavor comes from a corporation called Red Arrow Products Company and they specialize in smoked flavors. The way they do it is “by charring sawdust and capturing the aroma chemicals released into the air” (Schlosser). The labeling of natural flavor on the food product makes the consumer think that he/she is buying a healthy product. So when a normal consumer thinks of natural flavors, they think of flavors that come from nature and they are right.  But there is a slight trick; these natural flavors can come from anywhere in nature including parts from animals, plants, and even bugs. Yes, bugs. For example, the ingredient carmine or natural red #4 comes from crushed bugs (Bradley).  This ingredient is commonly used in yogurt and beverages to give them a red color.  Another example would be the ingredient castoreum, which comes from beaver anal glands and it is used in foods and beverages for adding a vanilla or raspberry flavor. These major food corporations are tricking us because they are allowed to use these ingredients and still have the man hood to label them natural flavors (Bruce Bradley). Schlosser only hit the tip of the iceberg with the way they make flavors. Schlosser appealed to logos more than pathos because he is stating information that he is found, but I still think that capturing a smell that burning wood makes is a little gross.  But his example does not compare to beaver anal glands that add taste and crushed bugs that add color.  I think that appeals to pathos because that leaves people feeling disgusted about the food that they are eating. This also appeals to Schlosser’s ethos because he has done his homework on Red Arrow Products Company.

Flavors in processed food products are incredibly stimulating.  They stimulate our brains by the amount of salt, sugar and fat that they contain. Today flavors come from science labs, but before that they come from Mother Nature. First these flavor scientists go out exploring for new flavors. The flavor can come form an orange tree farm to high-end chefs preparing elegant cuisine. They collect the best tasting flavors and then transform or translate them into chemicals that could be put into food products. The better tasting the product is the more pleasurable it is going to be and the more purchases the consumer is going to make (Fager).  

Food is a part of life and we the people are being tricked into thinking that most of the food on market shelves today is okay to eat.  Schlosser points out the flavoring in our food and the use of his ethos, pathos, and logos has changed the way I think about food. Now every time I am going to eat something, I think about whether or not it has been flavored with a chemical.  It really scares and disturbs me to think about these things because where else am I going to buy my food.

Work Cited

Bradley, Bruce. "Processed Food: Trick or Treat?" The Blog of Bruce Bradley. Bruce

Bradley, 30 Oct. 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.

Schlosser, Eric. "Why The Fries Taste Good." Food Product Design (2005): 119-28.

Print.

"The Tongue (Human Anatomy): Picture, Function, Definition, Problems, and More."

WebMD. WebMD, 06 May 2010. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.

Tweaking Tastes and Creating Cravings. Dir. Jeff Fager. Perf. Morley Safe. CBS News

Productions, 2011.