Photographer Caren Alpert wants you to take a good, hard look at what you eat.
One of the most powerful tools in a scientist’s arsenal is the scanning electron microscope (SEM), which uses a beam of electrons to magnify a specimen up to 30,000 times its actual size. The technology has been used to examine everything from trace materials on bullets to the diseases behind the declining population of honeybees. But San Francisco–based photographer Caren Alpert has adopted the technique for a less than scientific purpose: to get people to look really, really closely at what they eat.
[Terra cibus no. 12: cake sprinkles]
Not that she’s proselytizing: “I’m not trying to dictate what foods are important or what foods you should like or dislike,” Alpert maintains. “I’m saying, ‘Look at it differently.’” To that end, she’s given everything from chocolate cake and candy to radishes and coffee beans the microscopic treatment, in the hopes of underscoring how natural and processed foods differ not only in their nutritional value but in their chemical structures. “If you start to look at what’s in the photos, like the pineapple leaf, there’s such a complicated scenario happening right on the leaves of the plant,” she says. “Conversely, the Lifesaver shows how our food is being changed so much in processing that it is not reminiscent of anything.” Actually, her image of a Pop Tart (see below) is reminiscent of a pink (and wholly unappetizing) calcium deposit.
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