Ailments, Broilers, and Cattle: The ABCs of Why Food is Being Reinvented

The beauty of food isn’t food, it’s biology. The succulence and juiciness of meat, the mouthwatering umami flavors of pizza, the tenderness of steak, the crunchiness of buffalo wings, even the soft, stretchy nature of cheese. It’s no secret that because of these features provided by proteins, fat cells, etc., the role of food has transformed from the source of sustenance for humanity to a commodity to be savored.

Since the discovery of cooking with heat and fermentation, the culinary landscape of food has changed drastically; we’re not only able to extract nutrition, but also flavors, textures, and colors that weren’t imaginable. Our evolutionary and explorative nature led us to discover methods to build upon basic foods. We got hard and stinky cheeses, silky butters, and airy creams from milk, and rich, bubbly burgers from raw meat, even caramel and beer from sugar. Even though each of these foods come from the same functional capability, they are built off of unique scientific insights.

These insights often give way to the exponential change that create the most impact. Just think about it this way: the lightbulb and the candle are both meant to illuminate a space, but a lightbulb isn’t a better version of a candle. Building better candles would just be incremental progress, but building a…