Why we’re eating Tide pods

We’ve made food into candy and candy into detergent

Paul Stitt graduated UW-Madison with a biochemistry degree in 1968 and an audacious goal: End world hunger.

A student of the 1960s, he was idealistic and believed that the technology that solved smallpox and could put a man on the moon could also end mass starvation.

He saw firsthand that the need was dire. During his graduate studies, Stitt visited Columbia in South America and witnessed starving beggars moving into urban hovels. He learned that many had been forced off their land so rich ranchers could raise beef for Burger King.

“At the time it had not dawned on me what the real cause of hunger in the have-not nations was; neither did I realize that, right at home in the United States, malnutrition disguised as ‘the good life’ was claiming and ruining more lives than anywhere in the world,” he wrote in his 1993 book, Beating the Food Giants.

An old copy of the classic book — still holds up

Still young and idealistic, he took a job with a team of biochemists hoping to attack the hunger problem with the resources of a larger corporation. They got to work on a project creating protein that would feed a large, poor population.

Then his team was abruptly fired.

The project didn’t seem profitable. There seemed to be no marketing potential — at least at the time — for a bunch of protein. (Executives failed to foresee rich people buying muscle shakes, apparently.)

“If I had a whole mountain of protein, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with that,” the president of the company told him. “Who’s gonna buy something like that?”

The team’s enthusiasm and idealism vanished. It was New Year’s Eve, and they had to start looking for new jobs.

“Several discussed going into detergent enzyme production, which was at the time a very lucrative fad for biochemists,” Stitt wrote.

From food to detergent? This may have been the genesis of Tide Pods.

It’s no wonder that people are eating Tide Pods as a joke. We’ve made food into candy and candy into detergent. It’s just different degrees of poison.