Disguised as a cookbook, Comestible 7-Day Meal Plan: Food as Text by Argentinian artist Pat Badani combines the taxonomic language of science (biology and chemistry), with the seductive photography and pseudo-babble of marketing, with the declarative style of the art manifesto. The meal plan is conceived not so much to result in comestibles (meals to be consumed), but, more to the point, to provide food for thought. Badani refers to the book as an “ecological manifesto.”

In effect, Comestible 7-Day Meal Plan addresses the retrograde values of mainstream (commodity-driven) diet culture, and specifically, the exploitation of diversity in reference to the color-coded Rainbow Diet. Created by nutrition guru Dr. Deanna Minich in 2018, the Rainbow Diet is a nutritional program promoting the consumption of “colorful foods.” (The diet was popularized by media celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and health organizations such as the American Heart Association.) Marketed as a “combination...

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