Renaissance Readers: "The Dorrito Effect" by Mark Schatzker

Renaissance Readers meet at 10:00 am on the second Tuesday of each month.

This month's book selection is The Dorrito Effect by Mark Schatzker.

Have you ever wondered why those perfectly red supermarket tomatoes taste like tap water, or why a simple roast chicken now needs a mountain of seasoning to be flavorful?

It’s not your imagination. Over the past half-century, the flavor of our food has dramatically changed. As crops and livestock have been bred for size and efficiency, their natural taste has faded. Meanwhile, technology has stepped in to recreate lost flavors in the lab—altering not just how food tastes, but how much of it we consume.

In The Dorito Effect, award-winning journalist Mark Schatzker uncovers the missing link in our food system: flavor. Drawing on cutting-edge research in neuroscience, agriculture, and nutrition, he reveals how we’ve disrupted a complex chemical language that once guided our eating instincts. Evolution didn’t program us to overeat—we’ve simply tricked ourselves into craving the wrong things.

This eye-opening book offers a hopeful path forward, pointing to a new agricultural revolution that could restore flavor, improve health, and transform the way we eat.

Any interested reader is invited to join the discussion!