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| In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto By Michael Pollan The Penguin Press 244 pp., $21.95 |
Michael Pollan steps into a food fight
In his latest book, Pollan shows how nutritionism has unnecessarily complicated the act of eating.
from the April 1, 2008 edition
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During President Nixon's administration, "[a]gricultural policies were rewritten to encourage farmers to plant crops like corn, soy, and wheat.... Since 1980, American farmers have produced an average of 600 more calories per person per day, the price of food has fallen, portion sizes have ballooned, and predictably, we're eating a whole lot more, at least 300 more calories a day than we consumed in 1985," Pollan writes. He also points out that the 1980s mark the beginning of America's current obesity epidemic.
While Pollan doesn't advocate a meatless diet, he illustrates that vegetarians and near vegetarians are managing to avoid a highly industrialized food chain that begins with nutrient-simple grain and ends with hormone-heavy cattle in feedlots.
"Thomas Jefferson probably had the right idea when he recommended using meat more as a flavor principle than as a main course," the author writes.
The transience of health theories
However, Pollan himself spends considerable time showing how health theories evolve and then are "blown away in the gust of the most recent study."
The most classic example is the emergence of trans fats such as Crisco and margarine, once considered a healthier alternative to butter. But in recent years, butter is now back in favor and fast food restaurants are scrambling to free their menus of any traces of trans fats.
The fast pace of industry is another obvious culprit. Among 18-to-50-year-old Americans, nearly one-fifth of all eating takes place in the car. Another sobering fact about American dining rooms is that most meals take only half an hour to consume, about the length of a TV sitcom.
Pollan will succeed in making you think twice about what you are piling up in your grocery cart or on your plate. But he does offer a few personal guidelines to consider. That's where those seven words come in handy. He advocates eating locally grown food, now that it is becoming more accessible to the average city dweller. He points to the food cultures of our European cousins as examples of how to slow down and eat less. He contends that, yes, it is worth it to pay a little bit more for better quality, simpler food.
Freedom from fixation
Ultimately Pollan attempts to free food from unnecessary, man-made complexity. It's a habit worth considering, if you can set aside the irony of having to think more about food in order lessen our all-consuming fixation.
• Kendra Nordin is a Monitor staff editor.
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