US Airways - February 2013 - (Page 136)

Must Read the red flags that help guide us in our thing unusual about the ingredients: samples of fast-food burgers, fries, decisions about whether or not to conHass avocados, salt, ascorbic acid, citric chicken sandwiches, and chicken sume something. There was no mold acid, xanthan gum, amigum, text-innuggets. At the time I was working and no bad smell. stant, tomatoes, yellow onion, jalapeno, from home, and I had to keep everyLike so much of the food we eat cilantro. thing out of reach of our two young today, this immortal guacamole was not I was knee-deep in research on sons, who were never able to underwhat it seemed. It had, in fact, been food additives, but I’d never heard of stand why they couldn’t eat just one prepared — or assembled — by those amigum or text-instant. I went to the Oreo or have a taste of a Pop-Tart. store and bought another tub, tucking it deli workers, but not according to any I worried that my work area might into our fridge at home and figuring I’d recipe you’d use at home. It didn’t look succumb to some sort of awful infestalook into those strange ingredients later. like a processed food, but that’s exactly tion. I pictured fruit flies or those tiny what it was. Along with the usual avocaMostly I forgot about it. Then, nine worms that get into the forgotten dos, tomatoes, and onions, this guacamonths later, my mom, who lives with bag of flour in the back corner of the mole had corn. Or corn manipulated us in Boulder, Colorado, announced top cabinet. But none of this hapbeyond recognition so that it pened. Much of my collected food stubbornly refused to if we really are what we had been transformed into decay, even after as many as eat, then we are a differ- preservatives you can’t taste, smell, or see. And then there six years — far beyond expiraent dietary species from was that “text-instant,” as well tion dates. what we were at the as “amigum” — an ingredient I wondered what had happened to this food to make it turn of the 20th century. that, I later learned, was even more bizarre than I could so eternal, so unappealing to have imagined. the mold and bacteria that And that is the story of so much of she’d tried some of the guacamole. normally feast on ignored leftovers We’d just had a birthday party for one of our food, it turns out. Although my and baked goods. It seemed to me that our boys, and I’d bought some dips from mother instilled in me a healthy skeptithe dates printed on the package had Whole Foods. I hoped that was what she cism of processed foods growing up, little to do with true “expiration.” was referring to, but I was pretty sure all allowing me very limited access to what What did those dates actually mean? she called “gooped-up” food, I had no of it was gone. How was it possible that foods that idea just how tremendously technical My mom had tried the other guacaseemed perfectly edible could be mole, the Fourth of July stuff, of course. our food production had become until immune to natural processes of demy food experiments impelled me to “It was a little spicy,” she declared. composition? What were we actually take a closer look. What started as an My food museum was nauseating, feeding our kids? earnest attempt to understand the true but it had never occurred to me that it Around our house, my experiments meaning of labeling on the packages of could actually sicken anyone. I was were regarded as little more than the foods so many of us eat became a concerned because, as an older person, mildly amusing, sort of weird, and larger journey that brought me inside my mom has a higher risk of contractdefinitely gross. My food collection ing a life-threatening food-borne illness. the curious, intricate world of food was a funny little hobby. Until the science and technology, a place where Mom assured me everything would be guacamole incident. fine; she is nothing if not an unrelenting food isn’t so much cooked as disasOn a Fourth of July trip out of sembled and reassembled. Over the last optimist. Amazingly, though, she was town in 2011, my husband had recentury, such complex modes of proright. Not even an intestinal rumbling. turned from the grocery store with a duction have ushered in a new type of She’d only tried a little, thank God. tub of “fresh guacamole.” “They made eating, what we call processed food. Some people probably would have an announcement over the loudspeakConsidering our vast and bewilderlooked at that tub of green goop and not er that they had just made it over at eaten any of it. It was brown around the ing cornucopia of modern food choices, the deli, so I went and got some,” he edges and didn’t look particularly fresh. it’s easy to forget that most of the items said proudly. lining the inner aisles of the supermarBut others might have done exactly The container had a haphazardly ket and the substances offered on fastwhat my mom did, and mistake it for applied sticker on it, indicating that it food menu boards simply didn’t exist a something edible. Even homemade very well could have been “made century ago. The avalanche of preguacamole tends to darken after a few fresh” by one of the store’s white-coatdays, and what my mom ate had none of fabbed, precooked, often portable food ed deli workers. But there was some- 136 february 2013 usairwaysmag.com http://www.usairwaysmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of US Airways - February 2013

US Airways - February 2013
Table of Contents
CEO Letter
From the Editor
Did You Know?
Making It Happen
Hot Spots: Best Literary Pilgrimages
Wine & Dine: Top Chefs on This Year's Trends
Wine & Dine: Comfort Food
Great Escapes: Secret Mexican Hideaways
Adventure: Best Hikes in the Valley of the Sun
Gear Up: Romantic Gestures
Destination 48: Phoenix
Travel Feature: La Magnifica Costa del Pacifico
US Airways Feature: Sky-High Sips
Best of Living: Scottsdale Saddles Up
Special Section: Chateau on Central
Best of Living: The Reef Residences at Atlantis
Williamsburg: Rediscovering the Revolutionary City
Arts Spotlight: Ovation
Special Section: Kentucky
Riding Lessons: Miller School of Albemarle
The Arts of Orange County
Must Read: Pandora's Lunchbox by Melanie Warner
Great Dates
Puzzles
Readers Resource Index
Your US Airways Guide
Video Entertainment
Audio Entertainment
U.S. and Caribbean Service Map
International Service Map
Airport Terminal Maps
US Airways Fleet/Customs & Immigration
Passenger Info/Contact US Airways
US Airways MarketPlace®
Giving: US Airways' Do Crew
Window or Aisle?

US Airways - February 2013