Abstract
From cooking, shopping, and growing to dining and dieting, digital technology has become a frequent companion of our day-to-day food practices. The diversity of products and services available on the food-tech market is broad, ranging from smart kitchenware to diet tracking apps and 'biohacked' food products.
Investments in food-technology innovation are led by the corporate sector of Silicon Valley 'foodpreneurs' who started designing solutions for everyday food problems as well as complex food system issues. These food-tech solutions present opportunities for efficient food practices but also challenges to existing sociocultural frameworks of food production and consumption.
In this chapter, I illustrate such contradictions through the example of Complete Foods - a powder-based food replacement originating from the Silicon Valley startup realm that enables quantified data-driven control over one's diet. I discuss my three-year ethnographic study of the Complete Foods community and outline the risks and opportunities that the diet presents to day-to-day lives of its members.
I frame my findings within the Silicon Valley food-tech innovation context.