My Theory on How Füd Replaced Food
U.S. stores are full of what I like to think of affectionately as füd, in homage to one of Gary Larson’s The Far Side cartoon panels— food-like products that are edible even though they have nowhere near the nutrition or taste of food out of the garden or small farm. Examples of füd include Twinkies, Velveeta cheese, conventional tomatoes that never ripen, or the cheapest white bread.
Here’s my theory about how füd became so widespread:
All food used to be organic and raised by hand. Let’s say that back then, food cost 100 units to make and was 100 units of delicious quality.
An innovative farmer comes along and uses some new technology, whether it be a tractor or a pesticide or a new storage and shipping method, and they figure out how to make food that they can sell for 85 units while still keeping 95 units of food quality.
People that shop for food are stoked. They can hardly tell the difference in quality, and they love the cheaper price. Almost every shopper chooses to get 95 units of quality for 85 units of price; pretty soon the farmers selling 100 units of quality for 100 units of price don’t have enough customers to cover costs, so they either have to raise prices, and sell 100 units of quality for 110 in price, or jump on the bandwagon and lower their price by cutting quality.
At this point, 95 units of quality has become the new standard for excellence, and 85 units has become the new standard for price. So in people’s minds, what was 95 and 85 each now become 100 again, and psychologically they are the norm, rather than the old standard.
At this point, another farmer comes along with a new innovation that cuts price a lot while cutting quality a little, shoppers like the new choice, and the cycle repeats again.
After a few generations of this, the country is full of füd, because even though each decrease in quality has been small, over time it has added up until some foodstuffs are practically devoid of any quality or nutritional value. Meanwhile, over the same generations high-quality food has been getting more and more expensive because fewer and fewer people are buying it. If 200 years ago food was 100 quality for 100 price, now in stores we have food ranging from 5 in quality for 1 in price to 100 in quality for 200+ in price. The quality of food that everyone used to eat — organic and raised by hand — is now considered somewhat a luxury item that not everyone feels they can afford.
According to my theory, replacing food with füd was a group effort. Nobody thought 100 years ago, “I wonder how I could cause the food supply in this country to become poor quality overall?” The innovative farmer wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, they were trying to be successful; the food shopper wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, they were just making the choice that seemed like the best deal to them. I believe füd sales are due in large part to generations of eaters who haven’t eaten enough food to know what the difference between food and füd is, so they’re not interested in paying the higher prices for food. Children who grow up on füd may not even like the flavor of food!
As a country, we may have hit rock bottom with füd, because I see a trend now where more and more people are interested in paying higher prices for higher quality food. The more people buy food instead of füd, the cheaper food will become in comparison to füd. The more people eat food, the more they will be able to appreciate how it tastes different from füd, and makes their bodies feel different. Many people have been inspired to grow food for themselves. Hopefully enough consumers will choose food over füd that food will continue to become both more accessible and more reasonably priced than it has been during the füd years.
