Since the Tofurky phenomenon for Thanksgiving and otherwise, a tofu based and turkey breast shaped hunk of meat substitute, I have had my gripes with food that emulates something other than what it is. Since Michael Pollan and our evolving food awareness I thought we had embraced “eating foods that our grandmothers would have recognized.”

The whole thing about the Green Revolution of the 1950s has been to feed the masses cheaply. From this effort also arose the manufacturing of food products, supposedly to save us time and promote convenience. But feeding the corporate profit machine was its ultimate result, not our health.

The newest thing is openly called fake meat, and every effort is being made to create the most authentic meat taste and look, bloody drips and all – see a huge article in Wednesday’s NYT food section. After tofurky came the meat substitute Quorn, now there is fake meat, all made up of all sorts of ingredients, GMO and otherwise. In the end they are all manufactured foods, not something nature made. It’s not alive. It’s made in a factory. It comes in a package with a long ingredient list, and it’s not more authentic than a TV dinner.

We may be smiling about TV dinners, but if, in this new age of authenticity, we’re looking for a health promoting diet we might want to get away from “product” and eat real food.