What's Normal?

Scullion (n): a kitchen helper (Pg. 85) 

It is really ironic in how we strictly need food to survive, but it is what kills us too. Food can make you fat, or skinny. You can die from obesity or anorexia. You can be gluten intolerant, or peanut intolerant. You can die from a heart attack due to the food you eat. In other words: Food kills us, but keeps us alive. Furthermore, in Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson we learn that the way we eat food affects our bodies in greater ways than we can imagine.

Our eating habits have changed a lot through time, and specially with the fork and the knife. To us it is a more civilized way of eating, and proper too. Nevertheless, our bodies weren't build to eat the way we do nowadays. Usually people would "stuff-and-cut"(Pg. 84). This is that with one hand you "grasp the food. Then clamp the end of it forcefully between your teeth. Finally, separate the main hunk of food from the piece in your mouth" (Pg. 86). People used to eat like this, which is why the "End-to-end" bite position is much more useful than the nowadays normal overbite. It makes grasping food with your teeth much easier, however with the arrival of the fork and the knife things changed. We are now able cut food into little pieces and eat it without grasping or using your teeth to yank things. 

Consequently, our teeth start to slide down and move as we grow older and our jaw develops it "adapts" to the way we eat. (I put "adapt" in quotations mainly because our bodies don't change from use and disuse of our organs or limbs). Furthermore, as Wilson clearly states "the overbite is not a product of natural selection" (Pg. 87) It is absolutely normal for our teeth to move over time. For instance, if you don't wear your retainer after your braces have been removed, most likely your teeth are going to get crooked again. I never, ever had thought on how food has influenced my teeth or my body besides getting too fat or too skinny and the consequences that come with that. 

Through this book I have learned little details on how cooking, food and the way we eat has changed through time and has influenced us in many different aspects. Human cooking has changed and made us change too. It is really interesting how just the way we eat changed our teeth structure, and perception of what is a "normal bite position" and what is not. Food and cooking affect even the deepest corners of our everyday lives. It not only influences our food, cooking, eating manners and body weight, but our body structure too. It is simply bewildering. Imagine this: how would only eating liquid food influence our teeth through time? Would we loose them completely? Would they shrink? I might never know the answer to that, but I keep wondering: what else does cooking affect?