At Home With Dad

Michael Pollan lays out his premise of his book In Defense of Food right in the introduction. He presents a manifesto. Simply stated his manifesto is: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

It doesn’t get much easier to follow than that.

A buddy at my community garden mentioned the book to me last week and I finally got around to checking it out. Pollan’s premise is right up my alley and tackles many of the issues surrounding food and how we get it. He is skeptical of the food industry (and probably for good reason) and seeks to get back to food that doesn’t come packaged, boxed or shrink-wrapped.

Here are some of the more interesting quotes:

“If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a strong indication it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.”

“Most of us no longer eat what our mothers ate as children or, for that matter, what our mothers fed us as children.”

Pollan’s point here is that we eat food that is packaged. Gone are the soups, casseroles, and other goodies made fresh in our kitchens. They’ve all been replaced with processed food that is made quickly and cheaply, but is it food? That is the question.

“In January 1977, the committee [the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs chaired by South Dakota Senator George McGovern] issued a fairly straightforward set of dietary guidelines, calling on Americans to cut down on their consumption of red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm of criticism, emanating chiefly from the red meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee… The committee’s recommendations were hastily rewritten.”

Call me a skeptic, but I really believe the lobbyists continue to dictate our country’s health recommendations and policies. When someone steps forward recommending a dietary change, they had better hope there isn’t a well funded lobby group for any product that might see decreased sales as a result of the recommendation. Michael Pollan offers several examples of this in action in American politics.

As a result of this incident, McGovern and his committee began to focus on nutrients rather than specific foods. No more mention of red meat or dairy products, but rather focus on reducing fat intake.

Mentioning foods specifically took a back seat to the specific nutrients in food. Don’t eat more carrots, but get more beta carotene. Don’t stop eating red meat, but lower your intake of fat.  This begins to explain why there are all these specific pills for the newest “thing/nutrient” we all need to give more attention (Omega 3, carbohydrates, fish oil, etc.).

The food lobbies are just too powerful to be called out. Instead, our government started dissecting the food into its various parts. Problem? Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll have to keep reading to see where we land on the issue. (But, I think I see where he is going.) Interested?