Fear, Food, and Artificial Intelligence: A Conversation Worth Having
Someone recently made a sharp observation in response to one of my posts about AI and food. Here’s what they wrote:
“AI has never even tasted food. It has no mouth or stomach. It does not know what it is like to be hungry or have that hunger satisfied. It has never sat on a toilet wishing it had never ordered that Mexican food extra spicy. It seems to me that turning to such a thing for advice on eating is downright stupid.”
No, I’m not going to give you the username, and I’m not even going to tell you which social media platform this came from. That doesn’t matter.
What matters is that it’s a fair point. It’s funny, honest, and worth talking about. And it’s a thought that probably resonates with a lot of people worldwide.
Fear of new technology is real. Whether or not the danger itself is real, the fear always is—and it deserves respect. But fear also invites curiosity. It opens the door for dialogue. So let’s have one.
What the User Got Right
The user is absolutely right—AI doesn’t have a mouth, a stomach, or taste buds. It doesn’t crave tacos or regret hot sauce. It can’t tell joy from disappointment, and it certainly can’t feel the satisfaction of a well-earned meal.
Even so, that’s exactly why AI has value: it isn’t ruled by cravings or moods. It sees patterns we overlook. AI studies chemistry, ratios, and reactions—the math of flavor—and translates that data into human decisions.
What’s Missing from the Argument
Scientists have been measuring taste for over a century—Brix scales for sweetness, pH for acidity, and chromatography to separate flavor molecules. Long before AI, chemistry gave us a way to predict what food would taste like.
AI simply builds on that tradition. It doesn’t tell us what we like—that’s still our job—but it helps us see combinations we might miss. It finds connections between texture, temperature, and timing that humans can’t calculate on the fly.
AI can also spot overlapping ingredients in recipes to help reduce food waste. It can plan meals around what’s already in the fridge. It can even simulate flavor pairings by referencing thousands of human taste tests. So no, it hasn’t eaten—but it’s been listening to those who have.
My Own Experience — Successes, Failures, and Disasters
Working with AI in food has been an adventure. I’ve seen moments of brilliance, head-scratching oddities, and the occasional kitchen disaster.
Successes
- AI has helped me plan weekly menus that respect our family’s dietary limits and my wife’s sensitivities—without resorting to premade sauces.
- It’s identified ways to reuse leftovers and minimize waste, especially fresh produce.
- The Creative Cooking with AI blog itself is an AI partnership: I write, test, and edit; the model drafts and learns from feedback. That collaboration has sparked some of my most creative work.
Mixed Results
- Some models still ignore context—like suggesting cheesy meals when I’ve said my wife prefers no cheese.
- A few “smart” shopping optimizers misjudge freshness windows or portion sizes, creating waste instead of saving it.
Disasters
- Recipe generators that combine conflicting cuisines for novelty’s sake—think miso-chili pasta or cumin-banana pancakes. And here’s a pro tip: vanilla soy milk does not make a good sausage gravy.
- “Smart” kitchen tools that get confused when my Wi-Fi lags or when I use real-world substitutions.
These experiences taught me something simple: AI doesn’t cook—it assists. When it fails, it reminds me who’s really in charge of the kitchen.
Just for grins...
I couldn't resist this one: I asked ChatGPT about the comment that AI "has never sat on a toilet wishing it had never ordered that Mexican food extra spicy." the response:
"Ha! Nope — I don’t have a mouth, stomach, or digestive system to regret any level of spice. I can help analyze recipes and predict Scoville heat levels, but the “day after” experience is entirely your domain."
Hey, validation matters...
What We Should Talk About
Skepticism toward AI is not a flaw—it’s a safeguard. Healthy doubt keeps technology accountable. And there’s a lot of industry discussion right now about “AI Ethics.” And this is N-E-V-E-R a bad idea to discuss—it might be the most important idea to discuss.
What worries me more is the illusion that AI ethics are separate from ethics itself. They aren’t. Every moral choice still belongs to people—developers, users, and leaders. Delegating morality to a committee is like seasoning by committee: it spoils the stew.
It’s also worth looking broader than the kitchen table—AI’s influence is already in the fields, the cold storage, the trucks, and the logistics behind our food. AI helps optimize irrigation, predict crop yields, detect disease in plants, and monitor soil and weather conditions, reducing waste and improving sustainability. In logistics, it supports demand forecasting, inventory management, and route planning so that produce spends less time in transit and less food spoils before it reaches the table.
So if someone wants to build a “firewall” around AI in their cooking—that’s valid. But parts of AI are already embedded in the food system, whether you consciously use them or not. Learning where and how gives you real choice—to embrace, limit, or avoid. Not learning is still a decision—it’s just passive.
Fear keeps us cautious. Wisdom keeps us moving.
Where We Go from Here
Cooking and AI share one truth: both improve through feedback. The first step isn’t blind trust—it’s participation. The next generation of kitchen tech will learn from whoever shows up.
There’s also no rule that anyone must use AI in cooking. If someone wants to keep their kitchen completely AI-free—fantastic. Go for it. But before drawing that line, it’s worth understanding how much AI already influences the food supply—from crop management to logistics to recipe databases. That’s a big ecosystem to try to firewall.
Learning where AI lives in the food chain helps you make an informed choice—to embrace it, limit it, or reject it outright. Not learning, on the other hand, is still a choice—it’s just a silent “yes.”
Takeaway
Get involved now and learn—because whether we like it or not, dinner’s already in the oven. AI is a part of the food supply.
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