Fake Food

The following article is from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids.

SCIENCE WILL SAVE US!

The decades during and after World War II were an exciting time to be a food chemist. The field was wide open for big, scientific improvements: new artificial colors and flavors to invent, longer shelf lives, and, in some cases, if a natural disaster wiped out an entire crop, a scientist could just invent a substitute. It was an exuberantly naive time, when the slogan might well have been “If life hands you chemicals, make lemonade anyway.” Up and down the food chain, the old way of doing things— growing food on farms with manure and crop rotation— gave way to a brave new world of synthetic fertilizers and miracle pesticides like DDT. Pigs, cows, and chickens that once ran wild were now safely contained inside a food factory where they could be managed efficiently, with no wasted feed or space. Today it all sounds a little like a dystopian nightmare, but back then, food chemists thought they were using science to solve big problems like world hunger, malnutrition, and too much waste.

Into that environment strode a superman of creativity: William A. Mitchell, who received 70 patents for fake foods between 1941 and 1976. Here are four of his biggest contributions to American cuisine:

1. ARTIFICIAL TAPIOCA

Shortly after Mitchell was hired at General Foods in 1941, he received his first assignment: save tapioca pudding. During the Great Depression, tapioca became a popular dessert, a lumpy, sweet comfort food that was cheap and easy to make. The problem was that cassava, the starchy root that was its main ingredient, came from Java, Indonesia. When the Japanese invaded the island, the supply was cut off. Mitchell saved the day by figuring out that a combination of food starches mixed with gelatin made a pretty convincing substitute.

2. POP ROCKS

Not all of Mitchell’s inventions were soft and squishy; some were granular and full of carbon dioxide. Pop Rocks were a wonderful mistake— they were originally designed to be mixed with water to make a carbonated soft drink.

3. TANG

Contrary to popular opinion (which was helped along by a misleading ad campaign), the powdered artificial orange drink Tang wasn’t developed for the space program. Mitchell created it, General Foods introduced it in 1959, and… it flopped. Tang limped along for a few years, until NASA, looking for something to mask the unpleasant flavor of space capsule water, selected it for John Glenn’s 1962 space mission. That did it. With a “breakfast of astronauts” advertising campaign, Tang zoomed to success.

4. COOL WHIP

Although it now contains (a little) milk and cream, Mitchell’s original 1967 Cool Whip recipe was made up of water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors, and a bunch of other chemical stuff. It didn’t taste like whipped cream, but it also didn’t require as much refrigeration as the real stuff, making it ideal for picnics and church potlucks.

_______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids. Weighing in at over 400 pages, it's a fact-a-palooza of obscure information.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

We dish up more neat food posts at the Neatolicious blog

Comments (3)

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Newest 3 Comments

ohhhhh..... How I remember family get-togethers where the dessert had cool whip heaped on top. The extra special metallic taste was a sure turnoff for me. Even now, after all these years, I still cannot abide cool whip. If I can't have the real deal then I'll do without.
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Great post! I remember the accident on the set of The Twilight Zone movie when it hit the news and only watched it because of that. The movie was pretty horrible all around, but I was morbidly fascinated by that particular segment.
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Yeah Staxeon, I was going to say the same thing: no mention of one of the most famous deaths on a movie set in recent history, Brandon Lee, (though I suspect it's mentioned in the complete article). What a tragedy.

I wish someone would start again withe River Phoenix movie "Dark Blood," because that plot sounds pretty cool.
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I don't know about you guys, but I liked Wagon's East.

On a side note, I had no idea Heath Ledger had a 3 year old daughter. What the hell was he doing popping pills?
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Justin,

I don't know the real facts, but according to "sources" he died from a reaction to combination of over the counter pharmaceuticals. As for people deliberately knocking themselves off even though they are a caregiver, isn't a new idea. You just hear about it less because those people aren’t in the eye of the media.
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Is that a screenshot of Morgan as the wizard or as the gatekeeper? It appears that he's at the gate of the Emerald City, so I would imagine that there he's the latter (as opposed to what the caption says).
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I was disapointed too that The Crow wasn't mentioned, but I would have to say that I was horrified at the 2 movies that were spawned afterwords (the 3rd movie direct to video apparently) and the god awfull TV show that were released years after The Crow was released.
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They actually came out with a fourth crow movie, and it was also straight to video. They really tried to recreate the magic of the first, with typically awful results.

At least the second (City of Angels) had a father's love for a his kid be the reason for coming back, not the typical boy meets girl.
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Jon Erik Hexum also died on the set of his new TV Series "Cover Up". He was the star of the TV Series "Voyagers" which was a highly rated and watched show on NBC at the time.
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Sadly there's also no mention of great character actor Roy Kinnear, who died from injuries suffered from falling from a horse while shooting 1989's Return of the Musketeers.
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"Gladiator" was dedicated "to our friend, Oliver Reed." His death during filming was made even more poignant by the fact that his character, Proximo, dies during the course of the film. The CGI work is truly well-done; unless you know where to look, you wouldn't know it's CGI, and I'm not sure even then. Sad, because "Gladiator" might have launched a return to acting for him.
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I was disapointed too cuz The Crow wasn't mentioned, it's one of my favorites. If it's going to have a remake, I'd be quite happy to see it, but I hope they don't ruin it...
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@arrghiamapirate
Bruce Lee did not die while dubbing Enter the Dragon.
He actually died in Betty Ting's Apartment from a reaction to a painkiller given to him by Ting. Its rumored that they were having an affair.
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