Food Transcendence In Cron's The Pleasures Of Eating

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Food titillates every sense: hearing, sight, smell, touch and obviously taste. The sanctuary to the senses lies in the kitchen and table. Sadly, these places are becoming obsolete. The stove and pantry are being replaced with microwaves and frozen dinners. The presiding force that is changing the center for the senses is the desire for food transcendence. Food transcendence is the shifting from making homemade meals with raw ingredients, to processed foods with little similarity to any part of a living being. Transcending beyond food adversely shifts power to corporations, lowers food quality and destroys culture.
The transcending of food causes a dangerous power shift that has reached devastating consequences through corporations. This transcendence is nothing new to humans. Food is inherently described as natural, and humans have long attempted to change natural conditions that food relies on through the intervention of gods and (more often) goddesses. Now, western philosophy seeks to overcome food because of its natural attributes. Cronan argues in his book …show more content…

This disconnect is allowing our transcendence because this creates the sphere where consumers are isolated from the agricultural system, Wendell Barry claims in his essay, "The Pleasures of Eating" that, "The eater may think of eating as ... a purely commercial transaction between him and a supplier." Since food itself has become solely a commodity, the goal of suppliers becomes capital. Now, it is justified that the company processes the food because food is now just a raw material for a product. Barry again retorts that, food and its contents have been "processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived." This processing is what creates the transcendence from food to something

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