In The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Natural History of Four Meals (2006), author Michael Pollan explained the journey of a meal from field to fork. If reading that book wasn’t enough to inspire you to put down that can of cheese and bag of chips, Pollan’s latest book will tip the scale, so to speak. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto offers point-by-point directions on how and what to eat.
Which seems simple enough, right? We no longer need to hunt wild animals and spend our days gathering berries and nuts. We should know what to eat. We simply go to our neighborhood grocery store. Sadly, though, much of what we select isn’t good for us. Pollan suggests avoiding the entire middle section of the grocery store where the highly processed foods exist and stick to the periphery where fresh produce and meats are sold. Why?
Pollan cites the Western diet in which eaters consume large quantities of processed foods — which he says are more profitable to make — without question. But, it wasn’t always like this. When America was an agrarian society we knew food — real food. He writes that in the late 1800s, five states passed laws declaring oleomargarine, now just known as margarine, be dyed bright pink so the consumer would know it was an imitation of butter and not real butter. (The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned these laws.) Then 100 years later, eating butter became a health risk.
Thirty years ago the industrial food complex was only too happy to comply with various food and nutrition guidelines recommended by scientists and the United States government. After all, it was lucrative. Some nutrients were deemed good and some bad. Marketing the “good” became the model across the middle section of stores. Boxes were plastered with high-fiber proclamations or no-cholesterol labels.
Pollan writes: “Most of the nutritional advice we’ve received over the last half century (and in particular the advice to replace fats in our diets with carbohydrates) has made us less healthy and considerably fatter.” Somehow, through the dogma of nutritionism, a term coined to mean the belief system where the nutrients are more important than the food, we have come to believe that we need help deciding what to eat. We need to examine labels or use short-cuts such as low-fat stickers to determine what to eat. The purpose of eating for enjoyment has been hijacked by the concept of eating for good health. Yet, ironically, as a culture we are getting sicker and fatter.
Do green leafy products tout their health benefits? The rigorous analysis of pure food, Pollan says, is overlooked. Thus Americans buy overly refined foods believing these comply with the latest diet. Fewer and fewer real foods are being consumed. Add to this the American preference for large quantities of meat (Pollan reminds us that a normal meat portion was four ounces in the 1930s) and the problem is amplified since animal feed is also developed through nutritionism.
Whole foods have become refined. Our selection of food is becoming limited — corn and soy represent 75 percent of the oils in the typical American diet. Americans value quantity over quality, and seeds over green plants.
Pollan points to a study of the Aborigines in Australia’s outback who had forsaken their historic eating habits when they moved to Darwin. Once on an urban diet, the Aborigines became diabetic and developed a series of other diseases. The experiment took a group back to the outback where they reverted to their former eating habits and the diseases disappeared.
And that’s the good news. By changing our eating habits we can change our health. We do not have to forsake American culture: we can return to American culture — when most families grew up on a farm. Pollan suggests following some simple rules. Eat only foods that your great-grandmother would recognize — and get to know heirloom varieties. Avoid unpronounceable ingredients or products containing more than five ingredients. Avoid high fructose corn syrup. Eat mostly plants — from the farmers’ market, or, better yet, join a Community Supported Agriculture (N.C. participants can be found through Local Harvest.org) or grow your own. Eat organic and wild foods. Pay more, eat less. Don’t eat alone. Eat meals with wine and don’t snack in between. Eat slowly and learn, as the French do, when you are full — and that doesn’t mean being in the “clean-plate club.” Cook your own food: If you do, you won’t add stuff like high fructose corn syrup.
In Defense is not nearly as entertaining as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but then wouldn’t you rather read about a pig hunt than chemistry? Pollan writes that the American relationship with food is more conflicted than joyful, and while none of Pollan’s revelatory instructions are new (in fact, your great-grandmother would have told you the same), the advice of regaining American food culture one bite at a time may resonate with hungry readers.
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This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2008.
