Thank you so much to NetGalley and Abrams for my copy of Technically Food Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat by Larissa Zimberoff in exchange for an honest review. It published June 1, 2021.
This starts off with an important introduction, and interesting premise from the author, and her journey with diabetes.
The setup of this book is also really cool, each chapter being a "new" food product, and the details about that. It is well-written and heartfelt and readable. If you're interested in what's going on with newer food products, this is for you.

This book left me with a lot of open ended questions and it also was pretty research heavy. I would recommend it but only to someone extremely interested in this topic as it can be very dry,

I thought Larissa Zimberoff's journey into healthier eating was informative and engaging. I'll look for that author if she writes another nonfiction book about food.

This could've been made more personal as a collection of more creative essays. Either that - or be composed like a science journal of some sort. But because it's a little bit of both, it makes it a rather awkward read. I can imagine someone who is a serious fan of Michael Pollan appreciating this a lot more. Having studied 'plant science' (before) in university and then english lit. (later); this felt 'lacking' and messy to me. Regardless, Zimberoff does bring up some really interesting points that are worth exploring . Even though Zimberoff bangs on about how the book was delayed a year, some of the topics she touched on felt rather dated (even by 2020-standards). It's quite clear that this was written by a journalist without enough research. Felt rushed. A bit more editing would be fab.

I found this to be such a hard book to get through. I love books about science and food, so I thought it would be a fascinating read. It just felt dry and plodding. It took me a very long time to make my way through it even though it is not a very long book. Lots of promise, but sadly didn't hit the spot for me.

In Technically Food, Larissa Zimberoff takes us through the world of "new foods," everything from Beyond and Impossible burgers to cell-based chicken, milk made from pea protein, aeroponically grown vegetables, and chips made from food waste. She covers a wide range of new foods with the linking concept being that they're mostly all startups, trying to introduce different ingredients, processes, flavors, or concepts to the (American) diet. Basically all of these companies sell their product under at least one of these benefits: "It's good for the planet. It saves the animals. And it's healthy, or healthier, for humans."

As a Type I diabetic from a young age, Zimberoff also has a lot of experience assessing nutrition in food. A lot of the companies she covers want to make their products not only environmentally-friendly (whether from creating meat or a meat substitute without the environmental impact, using an underutilized or wasted ingredient, or reducing the inputs needed for producing a traditional food commodity), but nutrient dense. After all, people want protein from meat - and modern health-conscious consumers aren't likely to choose a new food if it's mostly carbs, saturated fats, sugar, etc.

The book is divided into chapters based on the "theme" of food: Algae, Fungi, Pea Protein, Milk and Eggs, Upcycling, Plant-Based Burgers, Vertical Farms, and Cell-Based Meat. Each chapter basically catalogues the companies working in these areas, with Zimberoff sharing her experiences interviewing the founders/staff, touring their facilities, and trying these products. She tries to stay fairly neutral throughout, not opining on whether we <i>should</i> be eating any of these items, whether any of them are as planet-friendly as they say they are, whether they're good for you or not, or what this means for the future of food. She simply lays out their business proposition and her basic takeaways on process, taste, and nutrition.

The last two chapters focus on takeaways: Are we buying what these companies are selling? Is this a good direction for our food system to go in? The very last chapter is one of the most compelling: Zimberoff understands that it's somewhat folly to predict what we'll be eating in 20 years, but she wants to do so anyways. She asks a variety of food experts, from Chef Dan Barber to various food journalists to other food authors this very question, and it's interesting to read how their answers overlap and differ.

The ultimate conclusion that I got from this book - and that I think Zimberoff wants you to leave with - is that the overall goal for our food system should be to improve the land we're already using. Invest in sustainable and regenerative agriculture and turn away from conventional systems that are highly inefficient and resource intensive. Intensely processed foods, even when made from plants, are not good for us as a whole. Upcycled foods that turn food waste into tasty products are good, but will take a long time and lots of investment to get to scale. Our diets are probably going to look different in 20 years, but none of us really know if it'll be more things like plant milk and Miyoko's butter, or if it'll be cell-based chicken and lab-grown beef.

Overall, this is a really fascinating read for anyone interested in the phenomenon of "new foods," and you'll definitely learn something you didn't know before. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley!

„Don’t Eat Anything Your Great Grandmother Wouldn’t Recognize as Food”, Michael Pollan famously wrote in his “Food Rules”. Well, when it comes to the New Food, it can be a challenge. There is a booming industry of laboratory created meals and while many of them are tempting for vegetarians and people who want to eat less meat, there is a concern whether they are good for us.

This is a starting point for this interesting book. The author takes us on a mind blowing tour of the food tech. She is a perfect guide, as both a journalist covering this topic for years and a type 1 diabetic, which means that her attitude towards food is much more inquisitive than that of most consumers. While very well written, the book can be sometimes a little chaotic, nonetheless it gives you not only a good overview of the latest innovations in this field but also tries to find answers to the questions of sustainability and wholesomeness of these new products. In most cases the answer is: it’s too early to say.

Recommended to readers of Michael Pollan and anyone interested in the food industry.

Thanks to the publisher, Abrams Press,, and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.

A BIG THANK YOU to Abrams Press for the ARC of Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat by Larissa Zimberoff, scheduled to be published on June 1, 2021. Technically Food provides a comprehensive survey of the foods and food companies at the forefront of the tech-driven food industry, underscoring the disconnect between the average consumer and their consumption. Although mass-produced plant-based products are marketed as the answer to addressing societal issues like climate change, animal rights, and our planet’s dwindling natural resources, Zimberoff points out the need for further questions and industry transparency. The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the ways in which industrializing livestock production industrializes the pathogens that circulate among them. It quickly becomes apparent that a consolidated, corporate-controlled system is not a sustainable solution in the meat industry or the plant-based meat industry. In this way, Technically Food asks a poignant question: When we envision the future of meat, what should we envision?
★★★★★

From the publisher: The full inside story of the technology paradigm shift transforming the food we eat and who is making it. Ultra-processed and secretly produced foods are roaring back into vogue, cheered by consumers and investors because they are plant-based—often vegan—and help address societal issues. And as our food system leaps ahead to a sterilized lab of the future, we think we know more about our food than we ever did, but because so much is happening so rapidly, we actually know less. In Technically Food, investigative reporter Larissa Zimberoff pokes holes in the marketing mania behind today’s changing food landscape and clearly shows the trade-offs of replacing real food with technology-driven approximations with news-breaking revelations.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

5 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 1 June 2021
#Technically Food #NetGalley

I usually really love books about food. I have so many and I find them so fascinating. I really wanted to enjoy this book as well but sadly I just couldn't. It was interesting for sure but it was just so dry. I felt like I was reading a text book. I felt like I was doing nothing but reading dry fact after dry fact. I know it can be hard to make books like this interesting but I felt like they didn't even try. Maybe I was just not the target audience for this book.

Technically Food read like a college thesis rather than a book. Larissa Zimberoff covers important innovations in food. However, I found the book to be too detailed. The story could be streamlined to delivery The who, what, when why in a more succinct manner removing unnecessary information. It was not an enjoyable read for this genre.

Curious. Interesting. Important questions raised. How different are technically modified foods from the common genetically modified foods that feed millions of mouths across the globe? By altering the dna of foods, vegetables, fungi, and other food sources are we disturbing the soul of nature? What about the ethics of marketing these foods whose ingredients and substances are still unknown to the average person?

I was expecting a more fatalistic dissemination of tech foods in this book, however, it was still informative without being preachy or antagonistic.