"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma was a fascinating read for me, an exposition of the degradation of our natural resources to fuel and supply a food chain that has left a large share of Americans overweight and suffering from an array of preventable health problems. Pollan says that he then wrote In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto in response to the large number of readers that subsequently asked what they should be eating. How appealing is it to think that the answer is as simple as the catch phrase that wraps the lettuce on the book cover? "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." But of course, if that was the extent of the answer, there would be no book.
Pollan asserts that we have lost our way nutritionally because we have become bogged down in what the author calls "nutritionism," an ideology that contends that the value of food lies in the nutrients it contains rather than the food itself. We select and consume food based upon the assertions of a huge marketing machine designed by the food manufacturing industry. Manufacturing. That's right - too many of us eat manufactured rather than whole foods. Because it boasts words on its labels like "fat-free," "no cholesterol," "whole grains," to name but a few. As Pollan comments about that wasteland of additives that exists in the aisles of the middle of most grocery stores:
"Yet as a general rule it's a whole lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a raw potato or a carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over in Cereal the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming their newfound " whole- grain goodness" to the rafters. Watch out for those health claims."
Pollan traces the source of this faulty system back to government regulations in the seventies. Demonizes the FDA in the most level-headed terms. Discusses the "Western diseases" and the effects an Americanized diet on recent immigrants to the country. Examines the environmental effects of transporting food across the globe. And then jumps forward to extol the practices of eating locally, of avoiding the supermarket or at the very least shopping the periphery of the stores, of not eating purchased food with numerous ingredients that you can't pronounce, and of possibly growing your own food, a topic much in the media this week as Michelle Obama and DC school children turned over the soil at the White House.
Some of this may sound like things you have heard or read before, but much of it is different, and the material is transformed into a page-turner by Pollan's precise journalistic prose. No extra fat in the book, so to speak. Pollan is criticized by some for his elitist approach to the food consumption habits of the individual rather than taking on, and encouraging others to challlenge the food manufacturing industry as a whole. He is gently mocked for his suggestions of taking to the woods for yeast spores to make bread or having a freezer at home that can hold the whole hog you just obtained. However, I (and tons of others) believe that the way to change our consumption habits and the nature of food manufacturing in this country is to make different choices as individual consumers that impact the bottom lines of these companies when huge numbers subscribe to the same beliefs and practices. It is all about the money after all.
Another reason I enjoyed this book so much was that I tried to see its contents through the eyes of my son, Sebastian. The greenest eight year old on the planet. He gives smokers dirty looks (many talks about good manners follow but he insists that it is bad manners to pollute his planet). He wants a car that has no exhaust coming out the back. He takes plastic bottles out of the trash for recycling. He is always quick to remind others of running water and unnecessary lights with his favorite question - "Ever hear of global warming?" And he won't eat anything that had a face. "Mom, is this healthy?" he asks several times each day. I want him to be able to pick up any food in his house, and eat it knowing that it is. Getting there. It takes time and effort. Time I have to spend scrubbing the green man clean when he paints himself while I am on the phone.
Now back to The Post Office Girl. What are you other
Sunday Salon participants reading today?
