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all the changes industrialization has made to the food chain, it would
be simplification. Chemical fertilizers simplify the chemistry of the
soil, which in turn appears to simplify the chemistry of the food grown
in that soil. Since the widespread adoption of synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers in the 1950s, the nutritional quality of produce in America
has, according to USD.A. figures, declined significantly. Some
researchers blame the quality of the soil for the decline; others cite
the tendency of modern plant breeding to select for industrial qualities
like yield rather than nutritional quality. Whichever it is, the trend
toward simplification of our food continues on up the chain. Processing
foods depletes them of many nutrients, a few of which are then added
back in through "fortification": folic acid in refined flour, vitamins
and minerals in breakfast cereal. But food scientists can add back only
the nutrients food scientists recognize as important. What are they
overlooking?

Simplification has occurred at the level of species diversity, too. The
astounding variety of foods on offer in the modern supermarket obscures
the fact that the actual number of species in the modern diet is
shrinking. For reasons of economics, the food industry prefers to tease
its myriad processed offerings from a tiny group of plant species, corn
and soybeans chief among them. Today, a mere four crops account for
two-thirds of the calories humans eat. When you consider that humankind
has historically consumed some 80,000 edible species, and that 3,000 of
these have been in widespread use, this represents a radical
simplification of the food web. Why should this matter? Because humans
are omnivores, requiring somewhere between fifty and 100 different
chemical compounds and elements to be healthy. It's hard to believe that
we can get everything we need from a diet consisting largely of
processed corn, soybeans, wheat and rice.