Devoured: From Chicken Wings to Kale Smoothies; How What We Eat Defines Who We Are

Egan, a food writer and director of the Culinary Institute of America, has a front row seat on the machinations of the American food industry and Americans’ bizarre eating habits, and in this engrossing study she shows how the sturdy American values of work, freedom, and progress have negatively influenced the industrial food system. She explains that the quest for convenience has created a “muddle of the modern meal”; delves into the phenomenon of desktop dining, now the norm for 40% of American office workers; and chronicles the marketing of low-fat, natural, and gluten-free foods (the “selling of absence”), which may not always be the healthiest way to eat. A disturbing chapter on “stunt foods” illustrates how social media has contributed to such products as Burger King’s bacon sundae and what these freakish amalgamations say about Americans. And who would have ever imagined that fake food shortages (such as the rumor of insufficient avocados for Super Bowl parties), promoted by clickbait headlines, would become merely another path for generating revenue? The well-organized narrative combines insights from behavioral economics, food science, psychology, and Egan’s personal observations. Her book is well written, her tone is upbeat, and she offers sound solutions to the tangled problems she discusses, but this is not an appetizing picture of America. (May)