A taste of robochefs or pretend food

The recent initiative by China to curb food waste is unexceptionable as the food binned there even in only urban areas annually is estimated to be enough to feed 50 million. The methods employed to achieve this, however, offer much food for thought.

Replacing normal army cooks with robotic arms to prepare ‘healthy’ meals with less grease and deep frying in general is admirable. Presumably, the soldiers will be disciplined enough not to cavil at whatever the robochefs dish up but whether that elusive characteristic of food called ‘taste’ will be served by such robotic precision remains to be seen.

If it is, then chefs the world over better watch out as Masterchefs of the future may look more like mini excavators even if they are taught to cook and swear like Gordon Ramsay.


The other approach to reduce food waste is more tangential: banning mukbang (literally, ‘broadcast eating’) or videos that have ‘eating influencers’ — a.k.a. professional gluttons — wolfing down vast quantities of victuals with exaggerated aplomb and appropriate slurping and chomping sounds.

If they ingest rather than throw away, can it technically be called a ‘waste’ of food? Whether such public displays of overeating actually encourage or discourage similar behaviour is not clear but its alterative — influencers eating invisible food — is not appetising either.