Oil.

Not hydrogenated oil. Not corn oil. Not soy oil or peanut.

I'm talking black gold, petroleum, the king of all fossil fuels.

Oil turned the family farm into a monoculture.

Oil is processed into the packaging that keeps food "fresh" and fungible.

Oil is the engine that drives globalized markets that exploit many so that a few can eat anything at any time.

Oil powers the boats that are stripping our seas of life.

Oil soaks the ground as fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

Oil spares us from toil while heaping devastation upon our children, grandchildren, and all future generations.

Margarine & Crisco ... hands down.

Umm.. I kinda gotta go two ways with this:

Actual Food Item:

• Diet Soda

IMO the worst that involve food are:

• Fast
• Double
• Super Size

Sliced bread?

Actually probably it would be all of the crazy seed oils and sugar substitutes.

Anything Crap in a bag/box, fake flavors/smells being sold as natural. Excitotoxins (i.e. MSG, Aspertame). Artificial sweeteners, and colors. Things that aren't supposed to be food, being put in food-like products, such as wood fibers. Hydrogenated oils, hexane extracted oils, or oils that have to be deodorized before they can be sold because they are so nasty.

Hiding nasty stuff by various strategies, such as listing the same ingredient multiple times with different names (sucrose, dextrose, concentrated apple juice, etc. are all sugar sources), renaming things (Aspertame->Aminosweet, High Fructose Corn Syrup -> Corn Sugar), hiding MSG and other nasties as "Natural Flavor", or having multiple names for it such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein.

Not labeling GMO products as such.

Not labeling pesticide use on food, not labeling various nasty chemical washes such as amonia, or chlorine on meat products. (How many restaurants do you know that would soak, wash, or rinse ground beef, or chickens?)

Carcinogenic ingredients such as carragean.

Suing to prevent testing every cow for Mad Cow, even when feasible.

Suing to prevent labeling of non-rBST milk as such on competing products.

Outlawing raw milk, and SWAT style raid on farmers accused of selling raw milk.

Calling things "Natural" when they aren't.

Junk food/drink vending machines in schools and school provided school lunches.

Calling tomato sauce or ketchup a vegetable.

My Plate/Food Pyramid.

Agricultural subsidies for grains.

The internal combustion engine. There's a direct correlation between the beginning of using tractors to plow and work huge farm fields and the human population explosion.

The use of petroleum for engines happened in the mid 1850s. Prior to 1800 there were never more than 1 billion people on the entire planet. In a little more than 200 years we've shot up to 7 billion, with the discovery of oil and the subsequent tractor engines allowing for a massive increase in "food" production being a main contributor to that explosive growth.

1800 1 billion

1927 2 billion

1960 3 billion

1974 4 billion

1987 5 billion

1999 6 billion

2011 7 billion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_curve.svg

Hydrolyzed soy protein. It's highly allergenic, ubiquitous in today's "health foods," and gives tits to boys and men alike. Yay!

Hydrogenated oils.

Hot Pockets mark the demise of intelligence.

Soy everything, marshmallows, GMO products, 'healthy whole grain' genetically engineered bread.

It has to be Pop Tarts right?

Doritos & beer (combined with football).

Some days I would only eat orange things: Orange soda, Doritoes, Killians (close enough), colby cheese and Cheetos. Yes, I am that weird.

Massive supermarkets and big box stores selling everything from engine oil to 'fresh' fish.

The donut. It's wheat fried in vegetable oil and topped with sugar: the three neolithic agents of disease in a tidy package.

The first time some poor soul said, "Hey, this wheat tastes great! I want more" and all the clever cooks started trying different ways of fixing/eating it.

Bacon-Flavored Cheese Dip. Has to be one molecule away from plastic.

Cheez Whiz. Cheese should not come out of a spray can; it's just not right.

We had a french boy stay at our house for a few weeks and when he went to the grocery store with us, he thought the cheese section was hilarious, because of all the pre-packaged, sliced, orange cheese.

the genetic modification of poison rape seed oil to the less poisonous canola oil changed our species from obesity being an issue for some to obesity being a problem for most. it is no accident the the cheapest oil is labeled the most heart healthy, thats how its done.i could be wrong but im not going to risk my life in an experiment that takes 30 years to end your life because by then it wont be the oil that gets the blame,everybody will just blame it on ageing.

Little Debbie Snack Cakes because they contains the triple crown of bad for you ingredients: flour, sugar, and vegetable oil.

It isn't the invention that is the problem. If the majority of people would rather have a hostess cupcake for breakfast than a wonderful fatty piece of pork belly and free range local egg with all its bright orange yolky goodness fried in coconut oil don't blame it on the manufacturer or the store blame it on the dumb ass people.

I would say the relationship between ag and government, lets call it the agindustrial complex, is the issue. If you make freaky concoctions of weird ingredients and people pay you money for them, cool.

If you go to your buddy in washington and pay them some bucks to say your freak concoction is actually healthy, maybe it gets a heart healthy seal, that is the issue.

So the worst creation was the idea that some how the government should be telling us what we should or should not eat and what farmers should or should not produce.

People need to take control of their own choices and take responsibility for what they eat and put in their bodies.

"What would you say is the worst food-related invention in History?"

The fast food concept!

The fork. Keeps us from learning how to use chopsticks.

Well I'm kinda mad at God for inventing onions because humans put them in EVERYTHING and I can't eat them! But I have a hunch this is not the answer you're looking for.

Onion rings, is that better?

People. People. People. And Rick Perry.

Whatever processed food that came as first on the market and got the snowball running down the hill.

GMO GMO GMO GMO

The United States Department of Agriculture, followed by the Food and Drug Administration, perhaps?

In a Paleo context, I suppose agriculture is the root of all the trouble.

Worst human invention of any kind:

Farming.

Candy floss machines. Toffee apples. Hotdogs. All the fun of the fair.

Flour & Pastries