Take
Back the Bite: In Defense of Food
By
Bruce Collier April 3,
2008 Issue
Journalist-turned-food chronicler Michael Pollan has written
several books on his pet subject. The Omnivore’s Dilemma,
last year’s bestselling work on eating in America, was also
reviewed in The Beachcomber. In that book, Pollan took a look
at big agriculture and meat processing, organic farming, and the
emergence of sustainable local food production all over the United
States. His tone was reserved and only occasionally judgmental.
However, In Defense of Food shows another side of Pollan - the
indignant consumer. Subtitled An Eater’s Manifesto, this
short work nails Pollan’s colors to the mast.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Pollan advises,
not so much a return to the land, but a return to whole foods,
to buying recognizable ingredients to be turned into recognizable
dishes. Though Pollan says we’d probably be better off eating
less meat than we do, the real enemy is not meat, or fat, but
“edible foodlike substances” marketed as food. Far
from being confined to food courts or vending machines, he says,
they are everywhere. America is acquiring a new kind of eating
disorder that Pollan calls “orthorexia,” an “unhealthy
obsession with healthy eating.”
The blame is partly laid on nutritionists, practitioners of “a
flawed science that knows much less than it cares to admit.”
The shift from “food” to “nutrients” has
led to the practice of dumping laundry lists of high-fiber this,
omega-3 that, and an entire alphabet of vitamins and minerals
into innocent foods, according to prevailing - and shifting -
dietary wisdom. Every year sees the sanctification and demonization
of ingredients, with supermarket shelves accordingly stacked,
or cleared, of them. Major food producers are leading American
eaters into an increasingly narrow-based diet of wheat, corn,
and soy, with fat and sugar added to keep it palatable.
A trip to a typical supermarket makes Pollan’s point vividly.
One can find every course -soup, salad, entree, and dessert -
pre-made and packaged to microwave into life. Breakfast, lunch
and dinner can be served complete, out of a box, and nearly 100
percent of those boxes bear health claims. Whether the fast-paced,
multi-tasking nature of our society necessitated this, or merely
enabled it, is not easy to establish. What Pollan does do is provide
a brief trip back in time to the dawn of what he calls “nutritionism,”
the subtext of the modern American diet. Ironically, he says,
our obsession with a healthy diet makes us less and less healthy
every year, with obesity, certain types of cancer and diabetes,
and other health problems at least partly attributable to our
national diet.
While I agree with Pollan’s observation about the unhealthy
dominance of processed “foodlike substances,” I’m
not sure that corporate greed or opportunism is solely at bottom,
which seems to be his position. In praising “traditional”
diets, notably those of France, the Mediterranean, or Japan, Pollan
fails to emphasize an important point.
Those diets are based on making the most of available ingredients.
Moreover, they spend a lot of effort turning limited, sometimes
less-than-palatable ingredients, into tasty dishes. The French
and Italians, in particular, are skilled in what food writer/chef
Anthony Bourdain calls “pig snout” cuisine, turning
scraps and organ meats into flavorful and satisfying meals.
By contrast, America has always been a land of plenty. A mass-industrialized
United States stepped up food production post-WWII for the simple
reason that the world was hungry, and we had the key to the pantry.
Things took off from there. We do have regional cuisines, but
our “national” diet has been based on “a whole
lot of everything, always available.” We have yet to grapple
with that, though our food industry is certainly making the most
of it.
Faced with an embarrassment of edible riches, there is a temptation
to overdo it. Still, the idea of chemical and artifical nutrient-laced
stuff passed off as “healthy” food should disturb
you, especially if you’re one of the millions of Americans
without medical insurance.
Having articulated the problem, Pollan proposes an answer, a simple
set of principles by which to shop. In addition to the real food,
less food, mostly plants rule, he suggests avoiding foods that
make health claims, foods that your grandmother wouldn’t
recognize as food, or foods containing ingredients you can’t
pronounce.
Sounds easy, I thought, provided you live in Sonoma or upstate
New York. However, Pollan provides a list of Websites to guide
the thoughtful shopper to stores and local food sources for unfooled-around-with
produce, meat and dairy products. I was pleasantly surprised to
find eight places within 100 miles of where I live, variously
offering organic meat, chicken, eggs, dairy and vegetables.
In Defense of Food, along with its precedessor The Omnivore’s
Dilemma, is required reading if you spare any thought for what
you, or your family, eats.
In Defense
of Food, 244 pages, Penguin Press. Available at bookstores and
online booksellers.
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