Do you know? China is the country that has pushed the "food industrialization" process the most thoroughly in the world. Almost everything that can go into the mouth has been deeply industrialized. Not just those packaged foods with ultra-long ingredient lists. But also: pork, beef, mutton, chicken, duck, and fish that have added water-retaining agents, tenderizers, flavorings, and colorings; fruits soaked in preservatives, waxed, artificially ripened, and stored long-term in cold storage; eggs produced under high-density feed and hormone-enhanced systems; various "flavored" noodles, drinks, and snacks; even cooking oils have started to become "flavor engineering products." Today, many Chinese people actually find it hard to eat food that hasn't been deeply processed by the industrial system.

In the past few decades, the optimization of the food industry has never been about "nature." Instead: lower costs, longer shelf life, more stable taste, stronger stimulation, higher repurchase rates, and easier mass transportation. As a result, food has increasingly started to resemble a: mass-produced chemical consumer product. Meat doesn't taste like meat, fruits don't taste like fruits, tomatoes taste the same year-round, strawberries are getting redder but more like flavoring. Eggs are becoming more standardized but increasingly lacking the "egg flavor."

Even many people, when eating truly natural and ripe fruit for the first time, will suspect that something is wrong. Why isn't it as sweet as the ones sold outside? Because the real strength of industrial food isn't just "toxicity." It's that it gradually rewrites your taste system. Making you start to think: extremely sweet is normal, highly fragrant is normal, tender is normal, uniformity forever is normal, never going bad is normal. In the end, humanity's perception of "real food" is actually being domesticated by the industrial system.

Thus, today, the entire consumer market is beginning to show a huge dark humor: the more expensive the item, the more it emphasizes: freshly cut, organic, simple ingredients, non-GMO, antibiotic-free, freshly picked, short shelf life, traceable, local farms, zero additives. Essentially, humans spent a hundred years transforming food into an industrial chemical system. Then, at an even higher price, they buy back "food that looks like food." So-called consumer upgrading. Often, it's not about increased purchasing power. Instead, people's trust in the industrial food system is starting to collapse.