Category Archives: Food

What to Eat

I just finished reading What to Eat by Marion Nestle. Unlike the other food books I’ve read recently, this one focuses on personal nutrition rather than the environment, thouth the two are not mutually exclusive. She summarizes her advice nicely with a 1959 quote by the cardiologist Ancel Keys:

Do not get fat; if you are fat, reduce. Favor fresh vegetables and fruits. Avoid heavy use of salt and refined sugar. Get of plenty of exercise and outdoor recreation. See your doctor regularly, and do not worry

Nestle’s book is largely an indictment of the food industry and its advertising practices. Food is big business, and companies frequently use nutrition claims to distinguish their products from the rest of the field. Though these claims technically have to be backed up by scientific results, Nestle finds that many of these “scientific” studies are funded by the very companies citing them. In fact, many companies add nutrients to foods in order to obscure the large number of calories/cholesterol/etc. that make the food otherwise unhealthy. Instead, look for products with few ingredients.

Food Part 2: Corn and Agribusiness

It’s been a while since I last posted about food, but I have not forgotten about it, and I would still like to take some time to reflect on Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I was originally just going to write one post about the book, but I wasn’t getting very far, so I decided to post what I have on the first section of the book.

Throughout The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan’s primary thesis is that we should be more conscious about what we eat where our food comes from. This seems to be a pretty unassailable position, but Pollan decides to a actually trace the history of four very different meals in order to probe the economic and ethical dimensions of eating in America. His first stop is McDonald’s, and this quickly leads him into a consideration of the complex role that corn plays in the agricultural economy. As a Nebraskan myself, it was no surprise to me that growing corn is big business, but I was surprised to learn just how omnipresent it is in our diets. Something like 60% of the items on the McDonald’s menu contain corn products, and even soft drinks are mostly corn. One natural question to this revelation is “so what?” Corn is vegetable, after all, and it doesn’t seem like it is such a terrible thing to eat.

To answer this question, Pollan follows a complex story of economics and agriculture to find out just how corn has changed what we eat. First of all, the rise of corn has steadily reduced the diversity of foods that we grow and eat. Modern corn has been genetically engineered for one thing – to pack as many calories into as little land as possible, and this leaves little room for issues such as sustainability or nutrition. We consume huge quantities of high-fructose corn syrup, for instance, but our intake of actual sugar has not decreased. By eating more and more processed foods, we are ceding our nutritional decisions to big corporations, and they just want us to eat (and buy) more.

The issues run deeper, however, when one considers the plight of the farmers who grow corn. Even though the price of corn has plummeted as supply has increased, it is one of the few crops subsidized by the government and the only way for many farmers to make a living is to grow as much as possible despite the demand. Pollan likes to call this an agricultural “monoculture,” and argues that it is bad for the land, for the farmers, and for us.

Pollan has certainly convinced me that corn is not the answer to our country’s eating problems, but I would have liked to see a little bit more scientific information on how this “monoculture” affects our health. Pollan sometimes seems to treat nutritionists as the enemy, and sometimes his reasoning is a bit holistic. He seems to take it on faith that natural is good and engineered is bad, and I think this is a bit short-sided. We certainly don’t have all the answers right now, but that doesn’t mean that science doesn’t have a lot to tell us about what we should eat.

No discussion of the ethics of agribusiness would be complete without a foray into the dark world of the slaughterhouse. Though Pollan was not allowed to visit any industrial facilities (for “security reasons”), he does travel to a ‘CAFO’ (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) to see the living conditions of the livestock. The situation he finds is abysmal. The grounds are filthy and polluted, and the animals are treated strictly as products. Corn finds a place here too- cows don’t digest it naturally (They’re ruminants and eat grass), but it is plentiful, so farmers have concocted a combination of antibiotics that allow them to survive on corn. Though we have come to praise “corn fed beef”, the cows live their lives ill and bloated.

One of the questions that Pollan asks throughout the book is whether the conditions he finds are enough to warrant adopting vegetarianism. Though I can’t discuss his ultimate conclusion until I talk about the rest of the book, he certainly criticizes the “out of sight, out of mind” attitude that dominates so much of our environmental ethics. As with the additives to processed food, we need look at where our food comes and whether we approve.

To some extent it’s no surprise to hear about how bad conditions are in slaughterhouses or how much we should change our diets, but Pollan does present an elequent examination for the 21st century. I particularly like the fact that he does not come to the table with too many preconceived ideas. He is not a vegetarian or a nutrition-freak, and while these are certainly valid positions, it’s nice to see a book about food written by a ‘foodie’ who still manages to be critical of how we eat. Truth be told, I would have liked to see a bit more about nutrition in the book, but overall it did a good job of striking a balance.

Food Part 1: Background

I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I’ve been thinking about food a lot lately, and rather than trying to write one monolithic post I am going to split up my thoughts into chunks. Today I’ll talk about some of the material and ideas that got me thinking about food.

It started when I read an article on the CRON (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition) diet in the New York Magazine. (See also a similar article from Slate). CRON is based on a number of research studies that have shown that mice eating calorie restricted diets live significantly longer than mice who don’t. While similar effects have been observed for several other species, the jury is still out on whether humans would see similar benefits from restrictive diets (See this NYT article for an overview of recent research). There is some evidence that primates who are on a CR diet are healthier than those who aren’t, but critics argue that humans are different because we already live extended lives due to modern medicine. The control mice in at least some of the tests were allowed to eat as much as they wanted, and many gorged themselves to ill-health. Of even more concern are the psychological effects reported by humans attempting CR diets. Many end up with unhealthy fixations on food, and the prospect of essentially starving yourself seems singularly unappealing.

While I am skeptical of the life-extension claims made by CR-supporters, I am interested in the “ON” part of the “CRON” diet. The basic premise is that there are some foods that are especially nutritious per calorie, and that by eating these foods one can get a balanced diet without overeating. I should point out here that I enjoy eating a great deal and I’m not about to go on a super-restrictive diet for vague promises of better health, but I do think that there is something to be said for eating more consciously. After all, I don’t smoke because it seems silly to intentionally do something to harm myself, but what is the movie Super Size Me if not evidence that eating a Big Mac is just another form of self harm. (Though, to be fair, recent studies have brought the movie’s claims into question). Clearly there is a difference in degree, but if I can make small changes in my diet that improve my overall health, isn’t it worth it?

I’m clearly not the only person thinking about these issues, and I’ve read some interesting discussions online. One post I found particularly thought provoking was “Why Can’t We Make Bachelor Chow a Reality” at evsh.net (see also part 2). “Bachelor chow,” in this case, is a hypothetical foodstuff that can be eaten everyday and would provide all essential calories and nutrients. (For another take, see also Scott Adam’s failed Dilberito). As I’ve said, I enjoy eating too much to have the same thing at every meal, but article is interesting because of its engineering-like approach to food. At some level eating well simply means balancing an equation involving calories, nutrients, and exercise, and this is an appealing prospect to a scientist. The problem is, of course, that it’s not clear exactly which nutrients we need, and conflicting studies are released almost daily. Food in a pill still seems like a ways off (thank goodness), but this engineering approach to food seems to stand at the heart of the conflict surrounding eating today.

In any case, it was mostly nutrition that inspired me to read Pollan’s book, but I ended up learning more about the food and agricultural industries in this country, and that raises a whole new set of issues.

More later…