Yes! The metaphysical status of food is quite important! I refuse to eat unreal food (but surreal food is fine). Here’s some food for thought: is real food better than ideal food?
Anyways, let’s not blame the ingredients for the names they were given! Really, shouldn’t the blame be put on the person who doesn’t know how to pronounce the word, and not on the thing signified by the word? Or maybe we should blame the person who named it—though they can probably pronounce it. The fact is, pretty much all ingredients have names you can’t pronounce, because, among their many names, there are some names in languages you do not speak (unless you are an omniglot!).
Fearing something you can’t pronounce is a little xenophobic, isn’t it? I say we ought to be cautious of things we know to be cautious of, but we mustn’t tremble when faced with the unknown. To encourage fear of that which we are ignorant is to encourage anti-intellectualism. Don’t be scared: be curious! Learn about what you don’t know before concluding that it’s bad for you!
An ingredient like monosodium glutamate may seem scary because it sounds “sciencey” (and because of 20th century anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S.), but it’s actually a wonderful, legitimate, perfectly healthy ingredient (unless you need to decrease your sodium intake). And we have it thanks to food science! Food science can lead to amazing new ingredients—our skepticism shouldn’t be directed at that endeavor; our skepticism should be directed at the late-stage capitalist market pressures that drive people to use food science for naughty things.
