Entertainment

Book Review- “The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor”

Published

11 years ago

January 6, 2016

Salty or sweet?

This time of year, it barely matters; you’ve had your hands in bowlfuls of both in the past few weeks. How could you resist?

The office lunchroom was rarely empty, bakers practiced their hobbies on you, and it all tasted so good. In the new book “The Dorito Effect” by Mark Schatzker, you’ll find out why.

Photo credit – Mark Schatzker

This year, you’ve resolved to lose weight… again. It’s the same resolution you had last year, and for the past five years but for some reason, you just can’t – nor can ninety million of your neighbors. But the fault might not be entirely yours.

Look at cookbooks from the turn of the last century, Schatzker says, and you may notice that people used spices, but not much and not always; in many cases, only salt and pepper were recommended.

The reason was that a recipe’s main ingredient itself was filled with flavor, which isn’t often the case today.

Over the decades, because farms needed to feed more people (and make more money), livestock was genetically made to grow faster.

They range less, too, and since chicken, pigs, and cows are what they eat, our meat is blander than it was even half a century ago; the same goes for many fruits and vegetables.

So it’s not your imagination: food really doesn’t taste the same as it once did.

Then where did the goodness in last night’s dinner come from?

Chances are, says Schatzker, it came from a laboratory.

Beginning with snack food in the 1960s, scientists have understood that you can make almost anything taste like something else – or you can enhance its taste – by adding flavors.

Our palates are hungry for those flavors, which are as addicting as tobacco; in fact, tobacco can be flavored. Schatzker calls it “The Dorito Effect”; it’s “what happens when food gets blander and flavor technology gets better.”

It’s how a corn chip can taste like salad dressing, how many restaurants can offer a large menu and serve it quickly, and it can explain why we eat things that are bad for us.

It also makes nutrition a lie, which “may be the most compelling lie humans have ever told.”

When I first saw the cover of “The Dorito Effect,” I wanted to raid my pantry. Now, after reading the book, I’m not so sure. I’m not sure about anything I eat anymore.

This is the kind of book that makes you call someone up and read passages aloud because it’s so shocking – even though there are parts that you might already know (or sense).

Yes, it’s complicated, but author Mark Schatzker makes it readable through the use of metaphors and food history, and humor that’s wry and sometimes hollow. Still, his final determination to have a meal sans added flavorings can’t be missed.

If you plan on shopping for food at a grocery store this year, you’re going to want to read this book. For foodies, snackers, noshers, or between-meal nibblers, “The Dorito Effect” might be a better treat.

“The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor” by Mark Schatzker, c. 2015, Simon & Schuster, $27.00; 261 pages.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

4 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.