You Are What You Eat – A Unique Photo Art Polaroid Series

You Are What You Eat is a surreal series of solarised polaroid photos based on food recipe ingredients by photographer Paul E Williams.

A Look at the disconnection between delicious sounding recipe and menu titles people rave about and the real ingredients used to prepare them. How many people, apart from the French, would really collect the snails for the Escargots de Bourgogne? How many people would cat a frog and remove its legs to make Cuisse de grenouilles à la crème? How many people connect a joint of pork, wrapped with a well deigned label in a supermarket chiller cabinet with a pig?

Our disconnection with food is an important example of how our modern civilisation has disconnected itself from the natural world. Food is a big secretive business and we are allowing big powerful companies to destroy our planet in the name of profit. Ignorance is not bliss.

Click on any photo to open as a slideshow. Click on the arrow below the photo for the title.

You Are What You East Exhibition Photos

I took these photos for a food exhibition at the Association Gallery London in 1989. I knew that the exhibition would be full of colourful mouth watering photos, so I took the opportunity to make a protest about the way people had become disconnected from what they were actually eating.

The vast majority of us no longer personally kill the animals we eat or grow the food we consume. Few westerners collect snails or frogs to eat and would be horrified at the idea. Food has become a Disney world of perfectly  packaged delicacies that hide the true stories behind their contents .

Disconnection With Food

Since 1989, our lack of knowledge about how food is grown, or reared, has allowed the food industry to cut corners to help supermarkets drive down farmers profits. This in turn forced the use of bad farming practices that led to the catastrophic bird flue, foot and mouth and mad cow disease epidemics, as well as the use of genetically modified seeds. 

Food For Profit

Food had become big business and our planet is paying the cost. For example, 75% of all cereals grown in the UK is used for animal feed. Britain could be self sufficient in grain if less meat was consumed. Food for thought.

Capitalism is wrapping up our planet and selling it for greed. In the process it is committing environmental suicide, and we will pay the same inevitable price if don’t start saying Enough is Enough.

Controversial Polaroid Photos

These photos caused a little sensation in the exhibition, which led to me being asked to do an interview for BBC Walters Weekly on my thoughts about food in 1989.