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Science at the table: why understanding food isn’t as easy as it looks

Written by Mashiyat Ahmed
Edited by Sandini Kodikara, Andres Janssen
Illustrated by Crystal Yang

On the right, a shocked chef with red oven mitts opens a large grey pot, with steam coming out of it. Within the steam, a question mark symbol is present. On the bottom and left, various food items and lab equipment are present, including an Erlenmeyer flask containing mushrooms, a dropper, red grapes, a bowl of blueberries, a cake with a slice taken out, corn, popcorn, bok choy, a pomegranate, a beaker of almonds, eggs, and a pipette. The title of the article, Science at the Table is located on the top right. The subtitle of the article, Why Understanding Food isn't as Easy as it Looks is located near the bottom of the image.

Students, trying to keep up with today’s fast-paced world, may often reduce food to a mere necessity, a fuel source to get them through the next round of midterms. Situating food into the greater tapestry of human life and evolution can help us understand how complex food and nutrition really are. Food is not just a consumable commodity; our interactions with food are representative of social, political, historical, and economic factors that shape collective lifestyles. What we eat, how we eat it, and why are central to the birth of modern humans and societies as we know it. Food is much more than just a fuel source, and food science—or the scientific study of the composition of food and its subsequent nutrition—is much more than just chemistry and biology. In modern times, food science plays a key role in how we think about food.

The origins of food science

The discovery of fire 1.5 million years ago and the later Agricultural Revolution by early humans made cooking not only possible, but significantly improved health by fending off disease-causing micro-organisms and growing crops in abundance due to technological changes.¹ Historically, food—whether it be cooked or raw—has also been used for medicinal and ritualistic purposes. According to a 2025 review in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Ayurveda practices preserved through text in 1500 BC India showcase some of the earliest uses of food as medicine. The idea of dietary therapy stems from traditional medicinal practices in South Asia, where Ayurvedic practitioners gave dietary recommendations based on the physical and mental status of their patients. As of 6000 years ago, Egyptian priests “documented the use of food as medicine, representing one of the earliest known references to the dual role of food as both nourishment and medicine in human history.”¹

In the early to mid 19th century, nutritionists began to explore the science behind food and the body. European biochemists, physiologists, and doctors applied scientific principles and performed research—with the help of emerging technologies—to explore key concepts in food science such as metabolism, food preservation, vitamins, micro and macronutrients, proteins, and food safety, laying the foundation for a richer understanding of food¹. For example, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur revolutionized food safety in the 1860s with germ theory, which provides a scientific basis for preventing illnesses caused by micro-organisms, such as food borne illnesses.¹ 

In 1929, Dutch pathologist Christiaan Eijkman won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for identifying and isolating vitamins A, B complex, C, D, and E and linking consumption of polished rice, which was later found to be deficient in B-1 vitamins, to nutritional deficiencies and health outcomes.¹ However, modern food science goes beyond just chemistry, instead taking a more systematic and multi-dimensional view of nutrition and public health.

According to the definition outlined by the World Health Police Forum in 2005, “nutrition is a discipline that studies food systems, food and beverages, their nutritional components and other constituents, and their interactions within the body and with all related biological, social, and environmental systems.”¹

A woman with dark curly hair stands in the middle, brows furrowed and looking at her phone with a red spotted phone case. A series of pop-up ads and paused video images surrounds her, some with arrows pointing directly at her and poking her body. The ads have titles such as "GOOD4U" or "BEST DIET!" or "GLUTEN FREE = HEALTHY" or "FOOD HACKS", etc. The pictures depict a series of food items, such as crossed-out bread, red wine, different pasta shapes, eggs, fish, almonds, etc. All the pictures showcase some food wellness claim.

Why is food science hard to study?

Despite this robust and all-encompassing modern definition of nutritional science, studying food is much more difficult than what meets the eye. Firstly, food science sits at the intersection of multiple fields: chemistry, microbiology, engineering, sensory science, food development, and agriculture.² To explore texture, taste, and safety, food scientists must take a multi-disciplinary approach, which introduces layers of complexity uncharacteristic of many other scientific fields. On top of this, food science is where science meets culture, economics, and other social forces². As established before, food is a deeply ritualistic and cultural experience with thousands of years of human history behind it. Looking at food and diet solely through a scientific lens is at best disingenuous and overly ambitious and at worst, can contribute to health and dietary misinformation.

Secondly, data is tricky to generalize. Because food systems involve so many variables, modelling behaviour or predicting outcomes isn’t as clean. A tomato isn’t just a tomato: it’s water, sugar, pectin—a naturally occurring soluble fibre found in plants—acids, microbes, and pigments. Each one responds differently to heat, pressure, time, and other variables. In fact, due to the complex nature of food, isolating cause and effect is difficult. Dietary science is also a huge part of why food science is tricky to study.²

People want to know about healthy eating habits: what works and what doesn’t work. On a population level, however, food scientists will often use self-reported dietary assessment to make conclusions about certain foods. But according to a 2020 review in the Frontiers of Nutrition, self-reported eating habits by research participants are far from perfect.³ Lastly, food systems are rapidly evolving.² Food systems are like living creatures. They grow, adapt, and sometimes change in surprising ways, bringing into consideration a confluence of factors.

A diet of scientific misinformation

For a while, the supposed “heart-protecting” health benefits behind red wine were all the hype.⁴ Advertisements and social media craze weaponizing clinical research on the effects of red wine on health implied that, in moderation, alcohol was good for you—or at least, not all that bad. Same thing with eggs: are they good or bad for you? The answer is complex because food science itself is complex! But what’s more insidious is why and how health misinformation circulates.

Some studies do suggest wine is better than beer, but what mainstream communication fails to capture is that those who can afford to drink red wine can also afford other lifestyle choices that are generally indicative of good health and wealth—such as access to clean outdoors space or a gym membership.⁴ Therefore, to isolate red wine as the single arbiter for improving heart health is simply anti-scientific. This is referred to as nutritional propaganda: misleading or exaggerated information about food and health often disguised as scientific fact to promote specific diets, products, or beliefs. For example, have you ever heard that gluten-free products are inherently healthier? Or that detoxing carrot and celery juice will “cleanse your colon?” Or how about the fact that carbs are the sole cause of weight gain?

In the last couple of decades with the boom in social media influencers and blogging, wellness fads, nutritional propaganda, and other sub-conscious messaging communicated through the medium of food are only becoming harder to identify.⁵ What’s even more concerning is that a lot of the messaging driving pseudoscientific health habits actually stems from fatphobic, sexist, and pro-capitalist ideas.

Health misinformation doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It grows in the cracks created by inequality and systems of oppression. Wellness culture disproportionately targets their pseudoscientific nutritional propaganda towards young, impressionable women, often encouraging beauty ideals of thinness. On top of this, weight stigma, racism, and misogyny warp nutrition narratives.7 There’s a long history of framing certain foods as “dirty” or “uncivilized” when associated with racialized groups. Instead of addressing structural issues like food deserts or corporate manipulation, misinformation places blame on individuals, particularly women and racialized groups.8

Unlearning misinformation, re-learning truth

Good science communication about health relies on evidenced-backed data, not sensationalist claims or research funded by conflict interest groups like food companies themselves. Part of the reason why health misinformation runs rampant is because social media influencers often fill the trust vacuum left by slow or inaccessible scientific communication. They speak with confidence, offer simple hacks, and build community. As consumers, it’s our responsibility to identify that health literacy itself is tied to privilege: access to accurate information isn’t equal. Education, language, socioeconomic status, and even geography influence who gets reliable nutrition facts. People facing food insecurity often rely on whatever messages reach them fastest, even if those messages are commercially biased and anti-scientific.3

It’s also our responsibility to identify misinformation. Oversimplification, vague or absent sources, too-good-to-be-true claims, or sensationalist imaging often make pseudoscience more palatable, and once you learn to notice them, they become glaringly visible. And most importantly, demanding accountability from the individuals or companies behind health misinformation is essential to exposing the systemic and oppressive propaganda driving the decisions we make about our bodies.

References

  1. Li D. The history of nutritional sciences. Asian Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2025 May 1: 265-270. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12126291/
  2. Vitolins MZ & Case TL. What Makes Nutrition Research So Difficult to Conduct and Interpret? Diabetes Spectrum. 2020 May: 113-117. https://doi.org/10.2337/ds19-0077
  3. Ravelli MN & Schoeller DA. Traditional Self-Reported Dietary Instruments Are Prone to Inaccuracies and New Approaches Are Needed. 2020 July 3: [page numbers not available]/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2020.00090
  4. Corliss J. 29 Jan 2020. Is red wine actually food for your heart. Harvard Health Publishing. [Internet]. Available from: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actually-for-your-heart-2018021913285
  5. Some Myths About Nutrition and Physical Activity [Internet]. National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Available from: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/weight-management/myths-nutrition-physical-activity
  6. Lissens M, Harff D, Schmuck D. Responses to (Un)healthy advice: Processing and acceptance of health content creators’ nutrition misinformation by youth. 2025 February 1:  [page numbers not available]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2024.107812
  7. Filipovic J. 25 July 2023. ‘Wellness culture has partly replaced beauty culture. But I’m suspicious. The Guardian. [Internet]. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/25/body-positivity-celebrity-skincare-culture
  8. Food History Blog [Internet]. Are Nutrition Guidelines Racist? Available from: https://www.thefoodhistorian.com/blog/are-nutrition-science-and-nutritional-guidelines-racist

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