Thanksgiving is about eating, and though local, organic food might be what the cool kids are eating, most people are still eating products of the industrial food system. Whether you’re talking turkey, cranberries or potatoes, industrial-scale processes have been developed to drive down food costs, drive up corporate profits and feed America’s incredible hunger for novel food items. But most consumers of these manufactured meals have little or no knowledge of the machines and methods used to freeze turkeys, turn potatoes into fake potatoes, and cranberries into TV-dinner cranberry sauce. It’s not always pretty, but food scientists’ epic battle to scale up your mom’s recipes without making them taste nasty is worth examining, if not giving thanks for. Turkey is the most iconic component of any Thanksgiving meal. Extensive breeding programs have seriously genetically altered the birds that millions of Americans eat. The birds have more than doubled in size si…[...]

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Industrial Thanksgiving: Science Takes Mom’s Recipes to the Assembly Line