The Paradox
of Plenty
The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
I can't get no satisfaction.
—MICK JAGGER
Considering the unprecedented bounty of the American food table, you'd think we'd all be as happy as kings. But we're not. In fact we're miserable. Richer than ever before, the American food experience is also more troubled. The revolutionary changes in American eating habits that began in the early 1960s have brought with them an era of unprecedented gastronomic hedonism, and paradoxically, an era of rampant food anxieties.
Call it the paradox of plenty.
The remarkable becomes commonplace so quickly that we scarcely notice how much, and how fast, the way we eat has changed. The range of food choices available to the American consumer today was simply unimaginable four
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