A very short history of food and its representations

The Birth of Language, Trade,
Branding and Agriculture

While humans evolved from nomadic communities and cave paintings to sedentary, or semi-sedentary communities and new communication systems, they did so partly through their transition from hunters and gatherers to food-exchanging communities. After they asked themselves, what foods were edible, which ones made them feel better and which ones they could trade based on what each person had, the idea of farming and trade was born. However, as Yuval Noah Harari argues in ‘Sapiens,’ once a community grows larger than 150 people, a symbolic representation is required to establish a social order.

Thousands of years after cave paintings expressed concepts concerning daily life and thousands of years before the first alphabet was invented, a certain kind of written language developed. Consisting of a set of different signs followed one by another, they appear to be a language since they seem to convey a specific message. This early kind of writing was pictographs. The language was called cuneiform, originating in Sumer, Mesopotamia, c. 3500 -3000 BCE, and consisted of drawing specific marks in wet clay. With the rise of Mesopotamian cities and the need for resources that were lacking in the region, long-distance trade developed, as did the need to communicate across vast distances between cities or regions. Symbols that represented objects and food were developed to help order and remember which parcels of grain had gone to which destination or how many oxen were needed. Even clay tablets with records of the sale of beer were found [fig.1] . For this to be a coherent and understandable writing system, scribes had to master techniques of making these signs and inscribing them onto small tablets of clay. The art of arranging a message in a readable and pleasing composition is an early definition of typography. In Caps Lock, Ruben Pater explains the position of the scribe as a designer, being a typographer, a layout specialist, and a printer combined. He would be responsible for creating financial records and trustworthy documents, which would allow for a society to manage their agriculture and trade. History is impossible to understand because there is no context in which to interpret physical evidence from the ancient past. Writing is the first necessary step in the written history of a culture or civilisation because it records the lives of people. The scribe, often being one of the very few to receive an education, had the responsibility to keep track of these records in an organised manner. Without the scribe, these large communities might not have been able to become agricultural economies.

At some point, farming became more complex, 1 and more organised [fig.2] since it had to feed larger populations. People started assuming various professions (architects, mathematicians, rulers, soldiers, and priests). Not everyone was a farmer or gardener anymore. That meant however, an entire population was at times dependent on one single type of crop, which did leave a high risk for natural disasters, such as floods or pests that could wipe out the harvest of an entire village or city. With the domestication of animals and plants, agriculture in full development, the monetisation of certain professions and food was well underway. It became clear that food was central and had an undeniable value. If you were able to have food on the table you were considered to be well off. The idea of ownership and what it meant socially, was not a new concept, even the genus Homo was familiar. Maybe it is too early to imply, but one might think that these types of exchanges were where capitalism might have taken its roots.

With trade flourishing, a way to stand out was the marking of an item for identification, consequently suggesting either familiarity or something to be of higher quality. A symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller’s good or service from those of other sellers is the very definition of branding, which seems to have taken origin already back in ancient civilisations. Places like ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome still mostly had illiterate populations, so the best way for merchants to sell their offerings was to hang pictorial signs and paint their storefronts. They would also burn marks into the wooden cases that were carrying their products, or sometimes were even pressed onto the products themselves. The ancient city of Pompeii has markings on its walls that show writing being used for advertising purposes. [fig.3] Looking back, branding was still closely connected to the maker of the product and a natural outcome of the production process, while compared to today, the maker couldn’t be further removed from it.

Development of
Nourishment and Botany

Once we were the ones foraging, hunting, and preparing our own food. We were completely aware of our surroundings, which foods made us feel good, and which didn’t. We listened to our bodies every day. Along with the domestication of plants and the categorisation of communities, various people assumed roles related to the growing, harvesting, and selling of different foods and products. However, they soon realised that food has a value, which can be used to their advantage since people will always need to eat. Abuse of that power intensified hierarchical structures and dictated what one could afford, as opposed to what one’s body actually needed. Eating whatever was available to one’s position took away control over our own nourishment.

Since the emergence of organisms and the genus Homo, plants and herbs were inherently part of our environment. We might not exactly know how we as humans came to be, but when we did, we were surrounded by greenery. I like to think that whatever was created had a purpose to be there and so did the plants and animals that humans evolved with. Now whether we were supposed to live in harmony with the animals of our time or whether one was supposed to live off one another, we will never know. But what we do know, is that for millions of years that is how humans survived and evolved and I like to believe that accounts for something.

The prehistoric discovery that certain plants cause harm and others have curative powers predates written history and is related to ancient wisdom, custom, and folklore. It is also the origin of the healing professions and its practitioners 1 .

The use of herbs as medicine may even be part of animal instinct. Sick animals tend to forage plants rich in secondary metabolites such as tannins and alkaloids. Because these phytochemicals often have antiviral, antibacterial, anti-fungal, and anthelminthic properties, animals may be self-medicating.

Botany and medicine were essentially in step until the 18th century, until one art turned scientific, and from this juncture on, botanical works would essentially be ignored for medicinal uses. The medicinal use of plants is seen as an alternate form of medicine and often questioned for its efficacy and is quickly associated with superstition, even if most drugs of today’s times were originally plant-derived.

Plant cures and nutrition were embedded into ancient medicine based on philosophical concepts from ancient civilisations such as Sumer, Babylonia, Greece, China, and India. Each of these medical systems formed a close relationship with nutrition and medicinal plants. The consumption of vegetables, fruits, and herbs revealed to promote health and well-being was shown to depend on nutrition. Even a Sumerian tablet dating from 2100 BCE was found to contain a dozen prescriptions for plants from the ancient Nile Valley [fig.1].

As for Greek medicine, knowledge of plants that cured was practiced by root diggers (rhizotomoi), followed by the words remedy/drug and let to drug merchants (pharacopuloi), giving rise to the word pharmacy. According to Hippocrates, the so-called father of modern medicine, there were a set of causes that influence health:
1) food and drink, 2) ambient air, 3) movement and rest, 4) sleep and wakefulness, 5) elimination and retention and 6) psychological states. These concepts, adopted, elaborated on, and further developed by Byzantine and Arab physicians, dominated medicine until the 18th century.

The amount of ancient medical scholars was however greater in the East than in the West. In the East, there are two dominant traditions, Chinese medicine and Indian medicine, known as Ayurveda, ‘the science of life’. Associated with the beginning of the healing arts in traditional Chinese medicine is a fundamental text, ‘The Huangdi neijing’ [fig.2], or the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic, containing documents, written on silk and bamboo slips, describing 52 diseases, 283 prescriptions, and 247 drugs including liquorice, scute, atractylodes, achyranthes, and conidium. Both, Ancient Greek medicine and Ayurvedic medicine might have influenced one another since they both contain striking similarities.

As for the documentation of this knowledge, scribes were again needed, taking the position of the typesetter, record keeper, illustrator, designer, and printer.

From Farmers to Revolutions
to Fictional Characters

Around the mid-1600s, two-thirds of the working population in Great Britain consisted of farmers, relative to other European countries. At that point, the British parliament started offering up those lands previously owned by the small-scale farmers to wealthy landowners. What resulted was a mass migration of all these people who had just lost their land and their only means of income - to the cities, thereby reducing the food-producing workforce in the rural ends, but doubling new kinds of work-seeking groups in the cities. Around the same time, technological innovation in the mechanisation of the processing and manufacturing of food paved the way for the industrial revolution. While new developments also had to be made in the agricultural sector, botanists started experimenting with chemically produced fertilisers in order to improve food crop productions [fig.1].

Food started taking its steps towards an optimised,
profit-bearing system/experiment.

With the industrial revolution set in motion [fig.2], production was multiplied tenfold and flooded the market with identical products. Quantity may have increased, but quality certainly did not. It was said that the invention of machines was there to facilitate human labor, but working in the factories might have been even more exhausting and dehumanising than farming ever was. While land- and factory owners grew even richer, the working conditions of the middle class worsened tremendously. They were subjected to gruelling shifts, monotonous but backbreaking tasks, and exposed to chemical fumes which ended up leading to irreversible health hazards.

In an age, with countless alternatives constantly saturating the shelves, when excitement followed innovation one after the other, a ‘simple’ product such as oats had to be made more distinguishable and interesting [fig.3]. Previously a way to distinguish oneself, the maker would sign wooden boxes, or even the product itself - with his own name. However even that started to blur in the midst of all too similar-looking signages and with the scale of it all, quite impossible to hand sign each and every product.

Soon artists were hired for what would later become the graphic designer’s job as a brander. Ruben Pater explains in Caps Lock that to stand out, artists were asked to invent narratives, names, and symbols. Anything to create pleasant associations between the brand and the consumer. To instill a familiar feeling onto lifeless industry products, fictional characters were invented (such as Quaker, Chiquita, Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes) [fig.4]. The idea was that by encapsulating certain emotions or connotations, (also concealed as the brands’ values) into those illustrations, a brand would create a sense of emotional belonging or familiarity. The branding that followed even thought of specific ways of speaking, informal language, and friendly imagery, in order to build a human personality that would appeal to a consumer’s subconscious. 1

Contemporary Changing
Perspectives regarding Food
and its Representations

Throughout history, we have come to see that food and graphic design play a central role in our world. Food is not only a biological need, one that has sustained life for many thousands of years, but it also impacts human culture and society. Food and design have shaped societal structure, driven economic development and trade while becoming intricately tied to cultural identity through traditions, beliefs, and ethics. However, all these factors also come to impact human health.

In a time where disease suddenly is not just on the rise, but peaking, one
might wonder if today’s food could have anything to do with it? 1

The aftermath of World War II marks a moment in time when the food production system underwent radical transformations. Although changes in how food was farmed, packaged, and sold already occurred during the Industrial revolution, it was mostly in how things could be optimised through machinery, horsepower on the fields, crop rotations, factories, and distribution systems, - food itself though had not really been interfered with. However, in times of food disparity and a malnourished and trauma-inflicted population, governmental agencies across the US and Europe hired scientists to quickly develop new high-yield varieties of crops and breeds of livestock, alongside synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, to boost food production. 2 While the quantity rose dramatically, nutrient levels in those very crops declined. Studies indicate that the nutrient content of certain fruits and vegetables has been declining since 1950 at an alarming rate. According to a US study from 2004, some garden crops have up to 38% less of key nutrients than they did in the middle of the 20th century. By using fertilisers and herbicides to produce more and more food, soil has become depleted of nutrients, which has a knock-on effect on the foods grown there. 3

Even more so after the 2008 commodity crisis, there was a big turning point in investment groups, as they had made food their new target since it is a value that can never depreciate as long as a population keeps growing (and eating). They realised there was money in agricultural commodities. They could just take a primal material, add value by processing it, and sell it for a profit. This is most effective on the condition that their sales pitch to the consumer is health and convenience at a ‘cheap’ price. Every population up until this paradigm shift had only known their dishes as being prepared from scratch and cooked from the comfort of their home, so how else could you suddenly justify canned soups or ready-to-go meals? [fig.1]

Advertisement is central to the marketing of the food supply. Vigorous competitors and food being a repeat-purchase item is the reason this has become such a huge industry. 4 Back in the 1960s the designer’s job was mostly to work in print/packaging. Today we have social media, influencers, TV, YouTube, internet websites, posters, billboards, print, and radio, - it seems advertising (which comes hand in hand with graphic design) has infiltrated every corner of our lives. Most of us argue that we do not feel influenced by all this, but if estimations are that the average person views more than 10,000 advertisements annually, does it really not affect our thinking at all? Even subconsciously?

The real problem though is that the most heavily marketed products such as sodas, sweets, crisps, cereals and well unfortunately also vegan meat substitutes, are foods that are void of any nutrition. Instead, they are filled with lists of unpronounceable ingredients, high amounts of sugar, inflammatory fats, refined salts, artificial flavourings, and texture-improving ingredients, which will trigger a spike of dopamine and in turn leave us craving for more [fig.2]. This is no accident. Big Food 4 has spent billions on bioengineering flavour enhancers, on lobbying policymakers, and on greenwashing their products as healthy and nutritious, when actually these are exactly the kind of products that are behind an epidemic of modern diseases.

And yet for some reason, we put so much blind trust into science, medicine, and supermarkets, without really doing our own diligence. This is not to say that we should question professionals in their fields, I mean who is to say we are better experts than someone with years of academic accomplishments? Nevertheless, we should be experts when it comes to the needs of our own bodies. Maybe we should doubt the decisions made by the people who will profit most from them. Does a profit-driven corporate conglomerate really have our health on top of their list of priorities?

In the past couple of years, vegan meat substitutes have become quite popular and caused several debates about our planet, our ethics, and our health. While we’ve been busy debating whether we should eat meat or chickpeas, large agro-businesses and biotech companies have taken advantage of the opportunity and entered the lucrative “green” consumer market. They are specifically targeting young, environment-conscious consumers who are critical of the industrial food production. They will advertise themselves as ‘eco-friendly’, ‘healthy’, and ‘sustainable’, when none of those things apply to them in reality. Something we seem to forget is that brands can legally market themselves as anything they want. They can even use phrasings such as ‘rich in protein’ or ‘low in sugars’, or ‘we care about the environment’, and count those as ‘design elements’ instead of actual pieces of information. In that case, it seems graphic design partakes in the spread of misinformation through the use of creative design strategies to help disguise key information.

These companies fail to deal with the underlying issues of industrial agriculture and its effects on the planet since it is the same circle of business people who invest and benefit from the growth of the biotech sector.

When we talk about vegan food companies we aren’t talking about NGOs, we are talking about large agricultural corporations. A plant-based burger will generally have at least 10 to 20 different ingredients [fig.3] , which go through a lengthy process of being put together under chemically assisted, lab-grown conditions . But more importantly, they are called plant-based but you will not find any real plants in these products. They work to further entrench industrial agriculture models to keep relying on globalised commodity chains, agrochemicals [fig.4], GMO monocultures, and conventional animal production. Synthetic foods are now being used as a tool to further concentrate the wealth and power of a small number of gaping giants without having to deal with the negative effects on the environment, human health, and accelerated climate change. Making ultra-processed food like this requires a huge amount of energy and consumes a lot of plastic. It is very far from being a 0 waste, environment-conscious industry. Instead, they just use a speech of sustainability and awareness, when in fact they are investment groups, who clearly are here to make money. These artificial foods seem to only strengthen corporate control over food and health, speed up the downfall of regional food economies, and further undermine food democracy.

Looking back at our histories with food and design, we can say with certainty that a myriad of things have changed. We’ve been steering forward for so long but what if we looked back and learned from our past? We think we need to come up with new solutions, but what if all the answers we need have already always been here? Instead of working against nature, maybe we should do our best to mimic her or at least work with her?

To address the environmental and health crises, we should look at processes that rejuvenate the planet, such as aero-ecological or regenerative farming. We should aim to avoid or even just minimise consuming ultra-processed foods. Try to shop local and organic to support small farmers and food producers. To choose humbly raised grass-fed meat and dairy, or organic alternatives if set on a vegan/vegetarian diet. And mostly, we should be curious, be investigative about where our food really comes from and what impact it has on the planet and its makers but most importantly on ourselves. How can we fight for food quality when we ourselves are not healing?

My experience

I have had my fair share when it comes to health issues, which eventually were mostly related to food. I thought I was asking the right questions, but really I just believed what the slogans said. Years spent in sickness and hospitals, I never really cared about my food. I also became a vegan and vegetarian. I cared about animals, about the environment, the planet, world hunger, even later on I did it for the health aspect of it. However, I had not any idea where my food actually came from. I just believed when a food labeled that they were ‘environmnet friendly’ or ‘healthy’, that they were honest. When I was vegan and my health took a hit, I didn’t consider that food could have anything to do with it. I had gotten to a point I couldn’t stand up or walk, I had to sleep for at least 10 hours a night and still could barely keep my eyes open during the day. I felt extremely anxious, struggled with brain fog, memory issues, suddenly ADHD symptoms, even depression creeped her way in. My period became a nightmare and well my life had gotten affected in every single way.

It is only when I started dismantling the layers of misinformation around our food and medical systems, that healing started to take place. I started cooking from scratch, bought as much organic, in season - produce as possible, and slowly re-introduced quality proteins such as meat, eggs, fish and butter. My diet became so much simpler and closer to what our ancestors diet was, and in retrospect I can’t say that I am surprised. For a long time I hated that I had this terrible experinence with health and food, I hated that it had taken me so long to get better and mostly I hated that noboy ever told me the importance of what we eat is and how much it affects us. Now I aspire to use my experience as a way to help shed some light or awareness to the people around me. Slowly I start to appreciate my experience because it has thought me more, than any book, podcast or article ever will.

Bibliography

Pater, Ruben. Caps Lock: How capitalism took hold of graphic design and how to escape from it. Valiz, 2021, Amsterdam.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind. Harper, 2015, New York.

Manning, Joy. Taylor, Matthew. Is our food killing us? A primer for the 21st century. Thames & Hudson, 2021.

Leslie, C. Aiello. “CARTA: The Evolution of Human Nutrition” . University of California Television (UCTV), Youtube. Accessed 16 January 2023.

Little, Becky. “What Prehistoric Cave Paintings Reveal About Early Human Life: Some of the oldest known art may hint at the beginning of language development, while later examples portray narratives with human and animal figures.” History, 5 October 2021, https://www.history.com/ news/prehistoric-cave-paintings-early-humans. Accessed 16 January 2023.

Ireland, Corydon. “Eating meat led to smaller stomachs, bigger brains”. The Harvard Gazette, Health and Medicine, 3 April 2008, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/eating-meat-led- to-smaller-stomachs-bigger-brains/ . Accessed 16 January 2023.

Janick, Jules. Hummer, Kim. “Healing, Health, and Horticulture: Introduction to the Workshop”. Hortscience vol. 45, NOVEMBER 2010

Lambert, Tim. “A History of the Industrial Revolution”. Local Histories, 2022, https://localhistories. org/a-brief-history-of-the-industrial-revolution/. Accessed 16 January 2023.

Rodgers, Diana. Wolf, Robb. Sacred Cow. Polyface Entertainment, 2020.

Meriwether, Graham. The Farmer’s Footprint. Meriwther Productions, 2020.

González, Raúl. Goodbye Cows. Provacuno, 2018.


Images

https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2017/04/brewing-mesopotamia/
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/july-27-2019-shopping-for-souvenirs-on-an-asteroid-new-cambrian-explosion-fossils-and-more-1.5065927/our-farming-ancestors-are-the-reason-we-can-say-f-words-today-1.5065948
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/reading-the-writing-on-pompeiis-walls-1969367/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39332438
https://museum.sinica.edu.tw/en/exhibition/11/item/323/?lang=en&item=323&exhibition=11
http://idsgn.org/posts/quaker-loves-life-with-archer/
https://www.frostedflakes.com/en_US/tony-the-tiger.html
https://thesustainableagency.com/blog/greenwashing-examples/
https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_15.html