Wired: My Compliments to the Lab

Yesterday I opined about natural vs. real food in grocery stores; today Wired reports on a disturbing restaurant trend:

Alinea's pastry chef, Alex Stupak, takes peanut butter and blends it with tapioca maltodextrin, a modified food starch that thickens and stabilizes fatty compounds. Tonight Stupak walks around the kitchen with a plastic container holding the resulting tan granular powder. It looks like coffee grounds but, inside your mouth, instantly reconstitutes into chewy, speech-impairing goo.