In Defense of Food
About the author: Michael Pollan, winner of the James Beard Award, is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (named one of the 10 best books of 2006 by both the New York Times and the Washington Post), as well as several other books. Pollan is in the documentary film Food, Inc. that just hit theaters this June, and this fall PBS will air a doc based on his other best-selling book, The Botany of Desire, giving us a "plant's-eye view" of the world.
Your "No Way!" Moment
For me, I'd say hearing about the McGovern panel report was pretty stunning, but this little nugget blew my mind: The father of the lipid hypothesis was saying that hydrogenated veggie oil (trans fats) might be responsible for the rise in coronary heart disease way back in 1956. 1956! We trusted him enough for upend our entire way of eating once, but then it took us like 50 years to heed him again. Wild.
What tidbit has surprised you the most in the first 53 pages?
Leaping Lipids
But look at Pollan’s chapter on the “lipid hypothesis” where he writes, “What the Soviet Union was to the ideology of Marxism, the Low-Fat Campaign is to the ideology of nutritionism - its supreme test and...its most abject failure.” Ooof.
So we changed our food supply upside down on a hunch? Should we trust public health officials or the FDA after this one? I’m sure many of us won’t (or never did), but unfortch we do need some kind of regulating body. How do we build one that’s responsible then to its most important constituents - us?
Culture Club
Pollan notes the "political dustup" in 1977 regarding Senator George McGovern's Dietary Goals of the United States paper as the beginning of the nutritionism in government. I mean, it's not surprising that the beef lobby got peeved when the government was prepared to say "eat less meat," and sadly, it's not so surprising that the panel backed off and essentially caved to political pressure.
Given those kinds of powerful forces holding sway over the food we eat, how do we go about creating one? Where do we begin?
*Sidenote related to McGovern: If you've never read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, you should check it out...it's a surprisingly (for the topic, not for HST) exciting look at the machinations of getting elected in the United States.
In reference to the response to my original post yesterday around what eating means to people as well as to today’s question on how we go about creating a culture, I think we begin by implementing a great mantra from Ghandi that a few of my friends use, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I have been very blessed to begin to redefine our family’s eating culture with a little help from my friends. I have met a great group of parents at my son’s school, and now that summer is here, to maintain close ties until school starts back we have instituted faery ring Fridays. We gather at a friend’s house and do potluck. The meals are freshly prepared to share with friends. The kids play in the backyard and the parents enjoy wine and beer. We are even implementing a mix tape share so we can add music into the line up. At dinner we eat on the picnic table out back or table indoors and laugh and enjoy the day as it turns to dusk. This tradition is very recent, but has begun redefining how our family looks at mealtimes and also how we, as friends, look at each other. We have raw foodists, wheat allergies, vegans… doing potluck not only becomes a social gathering but a learning experience about the families.
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What about the pleasure principle?
How logical, right? Today I paged through a health magazine, and the ads touted nutritionally fortified-this-and-that processed snack. I’m totally guilty of keeping a running tab in my brain of antioxidant-rich or vitamin-filled foods I’ve consumed that day, but Pollan’s broader outlook seems closer to nature - and a path we’re more likely to follow over time.
So, have you moved away from eating what simply tastes good? Do you grocery shop by the latest RDA requirements?
The problem is that I buy "healthy stuff" -- veggies, etc. -- that's supposed to be good for me, but I mow down the cheese, salami, and chicharrones while the kale goes bad.
We don't admire our food so much as slam it down during an episode of American Idol (or The Wire, if you're in my house). Most cultures have that reverence for certain ingredients...and from that admiration comes respect, which is definitely what we're lacking for our food here in America. The very idea of fast food negates that sort of lifestyle.
I think that this ties into Culture quite strongly...it makes me think of perhaps how people used to live, you know, Little House on the Prairie style! What you eat actually becomes entwined with you in a way and becomes something that gives you a sense of pride and excitement.
To answer the question above, I honestly only eat foods that I like. I don’t pay much attention to the new crazes and fads or government food regulations. I simply won’t eat foods that I don’t enjoy to eat! And, I have to ask: what in the world are chicharrones?!?! What am I missing out on?!?!
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Are you unhealthily healthy?
I've been looking forward to reading and discussing this book, because, well…I eat. And since my mom was a nurse, and saw plenty of people in the hospital with heart attacks, etc., she made an effort to make my dad and I eat healthy (even going so far as telling 2-year-old Mike that donuts were called "yucks").
Pollan states in the intro that "we are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating" - and the more we worry about it, the more unhealthy we get.
Based on my family history, my doctor's pretty concerned about my cholesterol and blood sugar, which in turn makes me pretty concerned about my cholesterol and blood sugar. It feels warranted to me, but then that could be exactly what Pollan's talking about.
Have you ever been ready to eat something, then looked at the label and said, "Oh, never mind?" And if so, do you think that's a bad thing?
The biggest focus of most of these illnesses (and many others) is what we eat. I think it's not just us, but as you alluded to, the doctors who have also encouraged the "orthorexic" rage.
As I have had family history of so many illnesses, I've only been able to recently overcome them by watching what I ate - I lost weight, went from pre-diabetic to no diabetes, my thyroid returned to healthy numbers, and instead of my cholesterol being several hundred points above normal, they were a mere tens - a small issue, seeing my past, that my doctor is confident I can overcome by continuing my path.
In cases like mine, I think you can't just eat with wild abandon. Does it mean I'm completely obsessed with what I eat? Not really. I watch my calories, mostly, and if I notice something is very heavy in sugars, salts, or is a processed food (among other credentials), I do usually put it down. I don't count every gram of fat, salt, sugar, etc., thinking that the one or two points over will make me that much fatter - I know better.
But with this attitude, I'm now hoping to learn what I can and can't eat, what I should eat, so that I don't have to be focused on what I'm eating. I'm creating new habits now, so that in a year or two, what I reach for is inherently fine and good for me. I think growing up with the Western Diet ingrained within me, with the nutritionists telling me what's good and what's bad, what the new fads are and the new little enemies, the practice of eating takes a lot of time to rewrite.
I think the real problem with many a person "trying to be healthy" is that they focus, and are obsessed on nutrients, not with whole foods. When you focus on nutrients, the "bad" and the "good", of course your food loses value and it will only lead to problems.
With making the change, I don't think at all that it's a bad thing to be almost obsessive-like in finding the real food, not processed or altered or modified. Only when you find it, should you shed the worry of what you're eating and enjoy the practice, culture, and soulful act of eating.
I mean, their job is to try to make you healthier, and it would be tough for them to say "Eh, don't worry about the latest study" if their peers are all touting it. Because wouldn't you be a little concerned if you were getting the opposite advice of everyone you know all the time? Even if it turned out to be correct, at the time, you'd probably think your doc was a little kooky, right?
I do think you're right about focusing on whole foods -- and it certainly looks like that's precisely the stuff that Pollan will be defining and defending as "food" here.
I also agree that the more we do this, the more unhealthy we get. I think in part this has to do with Pollan’s discussion that more and more products focus on one nutrient or vitamin versus the overall nutritional value of a food. I won’t get into my issues with this in terms of marketing, corporate profit, and the politics of this overall, rather I will say that I love that Pollan appears to be tackling this topic head on, providing solid information on how we got where we are today.
In regards to the question if I have ever been ready to eat something, then looked at the label and said never mind, absolutely. And I definitely do not think it is a bad thing. So many products right now list all natural, fat free, heart healthy or other such platitudes on their product labels, but when I pick up the box it is a bunch of chemicals and words that I have no idea what they mean, what they are, or where they come from. If the ingredients don’t list a simple food product, I put it down and run away. I am on board with others who posted that whole foods are the way to go. I actually have a recipe list I am collecting of whole foods recipes that are fairly quick and easy to make, and best of all my six year old son loves most of them! It is amazing without media to tell him what products he should like and what will taste good to him what he actually loves, but that is another topic altogether, isn’t it…
We're constantly bombarded in general with things to do, ways to make more money, be more attractive, whatever...and those things take time. If they made a pill that could grant you perfect health, it's be a top seller because any time you spend cooking is time you can't spend on that stuff. I'd be in line for a bottle of them myself.
The question is what eating means to all of us. It used to be a big part of the human experience, a way for families to stay close, a means with which you could learn more about other people. And we've definitely moved away from that.
Ideal Bite has introduced this book to me at such a great time, I've just started making important changes in my diet, more specifically eating more whole foods and less processed stuff. I now do most of my shopping in the produce department and make a ton of stuff from scratch...if I can't understand what a label says, I don't eat it (with a few exceptions that I haven't gotten away from yet, lol).
I can't wait to read more of Pollan's book, and of course, to read more of what everyone else has to say! :D
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The only way it would work is if there was some large panel that was made up of enough folks to represent all those forces, so all those differing viewpoints would have to somehow come to an agreement. And then there'd have to be some sort of ombudsman or Director of Common Sense to double-check it with a skeptical eye.
But even then, I dunno. I'd personally rather just assume that if I eat whole foods, cut down on processed stuff, and get some exercise, that's about as good as I can do.
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