Chew on this

​Meaning​

Hunter-gatherers knew food carried purpose. Eating for survival, certainly, but food connected these people to each other and their environment. Preparing and sharing it built community, passed on knowledge of the land and shaped how they lived with nature.

Then somewhere along the supermarket aisle, companies began weaponizing nutritional information, and the function of food has become the focus du jour. Food as a source for pleasure, social connection, or sustenance is not enough. Increasingly, we’re told that function is what makes food infinitely better, more appetising, guilt-free and healthier.

An apple is no longer just an apple. It is an antioxidant delivery system, a fibre source, a gut-health intervention. Chocolate addresses stress, promises PMS relief, and helps against sleepless nights. Some ice cream comes with 30 grams of protein. There are flavoured crisps making you believe you are having Sunday roast. Water has been enhanced with electrolytes and vitamins, bread fortified with iron and bioactive compounds, and cultured yoghurt promotes digestion, immunity and bone density.

Welcome to the age of functional foods, where everything on the shelf is working harder than before.

The category itself is not new. Iodine was added to salt to address widespread deficiency. Vitamin D has long been added to milk in climates where sunlight is scarce. Certain foods, from berries to mushrooms, are valued for their superfood properties. There were genuine revelations when it came to function, some public health interventions, backed by evidence that addressed real opportunities. At first, nobody was engineering nature’s innovations.

What is new is the scale and sophistication of the marketing: the bombardment of macronutrient data, impressive numbers and promised outcomes. Above all, there is a deafening gap between some claims and the science behind them. Information about the amounts or concentrations of ingredients sprucing up these products is far less readily available. Context matters, yet controlled testing and evidence for the promised outcomes can be surprisingly thin.

So, where is the proof in that protein pudding?

Lines between profit, intention and social responsibility are rather blurred. Understandably, the wellness influencer economy has made this reality harder to digest. When an authentic-sounding voice recommends a collagen-enriched snack or an adaptogen-laced drink, novelty sounds like a necessity. Enough convincing terminology can make us trust that brands have done the thinking for us. When something is selling like hotcakes, it is easy to forget that virality is not evidence of efficacy.

Who has time to read the fine print anyways when the headline includes a peptide, right?

We would be wise to take what we are sold with a grain of salt.

The same goes for supplements. Independent testing has found many supplements still contain hidden, undeclared or unapproved ingredients that do not match their labels. This is because regulation varies across markets, and supplements do not undergo the same pre-market scrutiny as medicines. An expensive, hyped-up powder with miracle health claims is no replacement for whole foods, but these proprietary blends make efficacy much harder to clinically verify or debunk. Knowing where a product comes from, what it actually contains and what evidence exists for its claims still rests on the consumer’s shoulders.

The emphasis on function may be well-intentioned, supporting wellbeing by opening the door to better awareness when it comes to food choices. But right now, that rhetoric of function is also a distraction where mealtime is yet another goal to optimise. Functional foods turn eating into a transaction. You consume this, you receive that. Every ingredient carries a brief. Every snack is assigned a job.

By labelling the function, we have dumbed down the experience of eating. Sharing a meal, discovering culture through culinary enjoyment and creating memories through taste, are subtracted from the food bill.

Somewhere in that pursuit for function, we lost sight of where the function happens and meaning was lost.

When we eat, our parasympathetic nervous system supports digestion. How we feel while eating can affect how effectively we digest and absorb nutrients. Stress or distraction activates the sympathetic nervous system, diverting the body away from digestion and potentially contributing to digestive discomfort. Sight and smell begin preparing the digestive system before the first bite, stimulating saliva, gastric acid and digestive enzymes. Taking time to sit down, taste, chew and experience a meal supports the digestive process. If you missed it, I recommend you read the Wellness Tourism article A path away from stress for the full science on stress.

Function and purpose are not the same thing. Function happens in the body. Purpose happens in the experience.

Food can carry a recipe between generations, introduce us to another country or bring an old memory back through a particular smell or taste, something I wrote about in A taste memory from Sicily.

Meaning cannot be measured in grams on a label.

This is what marketing fails to mark. Real, whole foods are natural sources of many of the same ingredients we see printed in snazzy fonts. The preparation, eating and digestion of them is how they become building blocks for potential health benefits like anti-inflammation and antioxidant effect. Food not only sustains us it locates us in a culture, in a memory, in a moment with another person. That is not the same as a macronutrient ratio and never will be.

So next time something on a shelf promises to boost your cognition, fix your sexual stamina or repair your gut lining, chew on this: why do I need it, what is actually in it, where is the evidence, and who decided that was right?

Real, whole foods were never not functioning.