designers imagine a more chemically earnest box of velveeta. would you partakesqueezing that velveeta packet over a bowl of steaming pasta shells, you know the convenience is too good to be true. but after a few quick stirs and delicious bites, any lingering doubt dissipates into a happy orange glow.why the hell is velveeta not in the refrigerated sectionviolating velveeta, by designers john pate hamilton and josef abboud for new york&39s recent feed me exhibit by grouphug, reimagines a box of velveeta shells & cheese as a brutally honest product&mdashone that more closely resembles what actually goes into a box of velveeta. rather than a cheese packet, the kit comes with a collection of various powders loaded into blister packs. in theory this is an art project, not a working prototype, you mix the powders through a complicated set of instructions i like to imagine bunsen burners and centrifuges to cook yourself a fully processed meal, without a touch of the standard convenience."we could have used something ideologically synthetic like a twinkie, but we felt the contrast would shine strongest in something whose natural and synthetic states are ubiquitous," hamilton writes via email. "where does cheese come from milk and therefore cows. why can&rsquot velveeta and why the hell is it not in the refrigerated section"the side of me that prefers less processed foods is terrified at the very sight of violating velveeta&rsquos colorful chemical packets, the molecular gastronomist in me is intrigued. because imagine if the ingredients on the back of a box weren&rsquot encoded into jargon you were never meant to read, but available in fully transparent blister packs, there for us to use as our own, molecular gastronomyinspired chemistry setshamilton agrees. "as soon as you shine a light on the &39truth,&39 sure, the immediate reaction is to wretch, but that disgust has to be followed by intrigue, because what is this it surrounds us constantly, and someone has obviously determined each of these parts are edible so they must be, but how is there a remix of these bits that could hurt you could you make a bettertasting velveeta if we could get a foodie chemistry set on the shelves i think it&rsquod be a great step toward reducing the number of ingredients we consume."indeed, maybe the food industry actually has more to gain than to lose through transparency. if nothing else, consumers would be complicit in their own demise. 
