The Dorito Effect

Mark Schatzker’s nonfiction book The Dorito Effect (2015) studies the trends in industrial food production that have resulted in a loss of flavor, which is then made up for by the addition of artificial flavors that fool the body into believing it is receiving nutrients that may or may not exist in the actual food.

Schatzker opens the book with the story of Jean Nidetch, who, in 1961, was dismayed to be mistaken as pregnant by a friend due to her weight gain. After years of trying various diets, losing weight initially only to gain it all back, Jean realized that she was always cheating on her diets and then lying to cover up her shame. This led her to found Weight Watcher’s, gathering friends who were similarly struggling with their weight and seeking diet success through mutual support.

Schatzker suggests Nidetch’s experience was the beginning of what is now considered an obesity epidemic, mainly in the U.S.A., but increasingly around the world. In fact, obesity seems to be “diet resistant,” persisting no matter what people try. He observes that human nature always tries to reduce the reason for something to a simple concept—e.g., blaming sugar for the obesity epidemic. However, he notes that food is complex. One cannot simply blame a specific component. He concludes that the real culprit behind obesity is flavor, the result of two trends that had already been in motion in 1961.



Schatzker explains that industrial techniques and scientific breakthroughs had increased food production at the fundamental level—by the 1960s, America was growing three times as much corn as farms had produced in the 1930s—but the flavor of the corn was weaker. This phenomenon could be observed across all kinds of staple crops: More of it, but in a seemingly less flavorful version. This applied to livestock as well, such as chickens, which traditionally ate a wide variety of insects and plants as part of their feeding, giving them a rich flavor. In modern times, the feed given to chickens lacks those components, rendering the chicken meat flavorless. At the same time as food flavor was becoming bland, the science of artificial flavorings was growing rapidly. The Dorito is a prime example of where these two trends intersect. Because of the weakening natural flavor of corn, the Dorito chips made by Frito-Lay didn’t taste as good as the traditional tortilla chips they mimicked; the science of “flavoring” solved this problem, and the modern cheese-dust coated Dorito was born.

These bland foods are also less nutritious than they used to be. Humans naturally seek foods with certain flavors because those flavors indicate nutrients that the body needs. Artificial flavorings fool the body into thinking it has received these nutrients. Since those vitamins and minerals are not actually present, however, our bodies drive us to eat more in order to get them, leading directly to obesity. Simultaneously, artificial flavorings can imbue food with flavors that do not naturally occur, which warps our sense of what food actually tastes like, training us to reject natural foods to seek out the less-healthy processed foods we now perceive as “normal.”

As processed foods become tastier but less nutritious, natural foods are becoming less tasty, confounding anyone who attempts to eat a healthier diet. Many people experience a sense of depression and dissatisfaction while attempting to diet or eat healthier, simply because the unprocessed food is less delicious than it should be. This creates a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.



Schatzker offers some hope for the future; the same science that has made food bland and then supplied the flavoring to cover it up has the potential to return us to the food of the past, naturally flavorful and bursting with nutrients. He notes that the modern tomato found in a supermarket is bland and tasteless because tomato plants are pushed to produce more tomatoes than they naturally can support. Unable to fill the tomatoes with nutrients, they fill them with water, which is exactly what the tomatoes taste like.

Schatzker ends with a brief guide on how to eat better, offering a few basic rules: Eat real flavor (be curious about where flavor is coming from and avoid artificial additives); eat a wide variety of real foods; recognize that one’s sense of taste can and will evolve; eat the best-tasting natural foods one can find; eat pastured meat; avoid synthetic flavors. He then offers a list of ingredient names that fool the nose and tongue which can be avoided, advising one to avoid restaurants that use synthetic flavorings (or which don’t offer ingredients’ lists), to eat a lot of herbs and spices, and to avoid vitamin pills.