It’s more profitable to sell packaged, prepared foods than raw materials, and there’s a market for prepared food because it liberated housewives (and now househusbands as well) from kitchen labor. The trouble is that foods designed to spend time in transit, in warehouses, and on supermarket shelves has to be preserved in some way, which damages the flavor of fresh food, so manufacturers compensate by adding salt, fat, and/or sugars, which I’m told make food more appealing to the mouth, but cause problems elsewhere in the body. I recommend the book Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food is Making us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer — And What You can do About it (O’Neill Library HD9005 .F6582 2009) or the DVD (O’Neill Library 3rd Floor Media HD9005 .F66 2009)