In Defense of Food

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by Michael Pollan




  In Defense of Food

  Michael Pollan

  Also by Mic­ha­el Pol­lan

  Se­cond Na­tu­re

  A Pla­ce of My Own

  The Bo­tany of De­si­re

  The Om­ni­vo­re’s Di­lem­ma

  FOR ANN AND GERRY,

  With gra­ti­tu­de for yo­ur lo­yal fri­ends­hip

  and ins­pi­red edi­ting

  INTRODUCTION

  AN EATER’S MANIFESTO

  E at fo­od. Not too much. Mostly plants.

  That, mo­re or less, is the short ans­wer to the sup­po­sedly inc­re­dibly comp­li­ca­ted and con­fu­sing qu­es­ti­on of what we hu­mans sho­uld eat in or­der to be ma­xi­mal­ly he­althy.

  I ha­te to gi­ve the ga­me away right he­re at the be­gin­ning of a who­le bo­ok de­vo­ted to the su­bj­ect, and I’m temp­ted to comp­li­ca­te mat­ters in the in­te­rest of ke­eping things go­ing for a co­up­le hund­red mo­re pa­ges or so. I’ll try to re­sist, but will go ahe­ad and add a few mo­re de­ta­ils to flesh out the re­com­men­da­ti­ons. Li­ke, eating a lit­tle me­at isn’t go­ing to kill you, tho­ugh it might be bet­ter ap­pro­ac­hed as a si­de dish than as a ma­in. And you’re bet­ter off eating who­le fresh fo­ods rat­her than pro­ces­sed fo­od pro­ducts. That’s what I me­an by the re­com­men­da­ti­on to “eat fo­od,” which is not qu­ite as simp­le as it so­unds. For whi­le it used to be that fo­od was all you co­uld eat, to­day the­re are tho­usands of ot­her edib­le fo­od­li­ke subs­tan­ces in the su­per­mar­ket. The­se no­vel pro­ducts of fo­od sci­en­ce of­ten co­me in pac­ka­ges ela­bo­ra­tely fes­to­oned with he­alth cla­ims, which brings me to anot­her, so­mew­hat co­un­te­rin­tu­iti­ve, pi­ece of ad­vi­ce: 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.

  You can see how qu­ickly things can get comp­li­ca­ted.

  I star­ted on this qu­est to iden­tify a few simp­le ru­les abo­ut eating af­ter pub­lis­hing The Om­ni­vo­re’s Di­lem­ma in 2006. Qu­es­ti­ons of per­so­nal he­alth did not ta­ke cen­ter sta­ge in that bo­ok, which was mo­re con­cer­ned with the eco­lo­gi­cal and et­hi­cal di­men­si­ons of our eating cho­ices. (Tho­ugh I’ve fo­und that, in most but not all ca­ses, the best et­hi­cal and en­vi­ron­men­tal cho­ices al­so hap­pen to be the best cho­ices for our he­alth-very go­od news in­de­ed.) But many re­aders wan­ted to know, af­ter they’d spent a few hund­red pa­ges fol­lo­wing me fol­lo­wing the fo­od cha­ins that fe­ed us, “Okay, but what sho­uld I eat? And now that you’ve be­en to the fe­ed­lots, the fo­od-pro­ces­sing plants, the or­ga­nic fac­tory farms, and the lo­cal farms and ranc­hes, what do you eat?”

  Fa­ir qu­es­ti­ons, tho­ugh it do­es se­em to me a symptom of our pre­sent con­fu­si­on abo­ut fo­od that pe­op­le wo­uld fe­el the ne­ed to con­sult a jo­ur­na­list, or for that mat­ter a nut­ri­ti­onist or doc­tor or go­vern­ment fo­od pyra­mid, on so ba­sic a qu­es­ti­on abo­ut the con­duct of our every­day li­ves as hu­mans. I me­an, what ot­her ani­mal ne­eds pro­fes­si­onal help in de­ci­ding what it sho­uld eat? True, as om­ni­vo­res-cre­atu­res that can eat just abo­ut anyt­hing na­tu­re has to of­fer and that in fact ne­ed to eat a wi­de va­ri­ety of dif­fe­rent things in or­der to be he­althy-the “What to eat” qu­es­ti­on is so­mew­hat mo­re comp­li­ca­ted for us than it is for, say, cows. Yet for most of hu­man his­tory, hu­mans ha­ve na­vi­ga­ted the qu­es­ti­on wit­ho­ut ex­pert ad­vi­ce. To gu­ide us we had, ins­te­ad, Cul­tu­re, which, at le­ast when it co­mes to fo­od, is re­al­ly just a fancy word for yo­ur mot­her. What to eat, how much of it to eat, what or­der in which to eat it, with what and when and with whom ha­ve for most of hu­man his­tory be­en a set of qu­es­ti­ons long set­tled and pas­sed down from pa­rents to child­ren wit­ho­ut a lot of cont­ro­versy or fuss.

  But over the last se­ve­ral de­ca­des, mom lost much of her aut­ho­rity over the din­ner me­nu, ce­ding it to sci­en­tists and fo­od mar­ke­ters (often an un­he­althy al­li­an­ce of the two) and, to a les­ser ex­tent, to the go­vern­ment, with its ever-shif­ting di­etary gu­ide­li­nes, fo­od-la­be­ling ru­les, and perp­le­xing pyra­mids. Think abo­ut it: Most of us no lon­ger eat what our mot­hers ate as child­ren or, for that mat­ter, what our mot­hers fed us as child­ren. This is, his­to­ri­cal­ly spe­aking, an unu­su­al sta­te of af­fa­irs.

  My own mot­her grew up in the 1930s and 1940s eating a lot of tra­di­ti­onal Jewish-Ame­ri­can fa­re, typi­cal of fa­mi­li­es who re­cently emig­ra­ted from Rus­sia or Eas­tern Euro­pe: stuf­fed cab­ba­ge, or­gan me­ats, che­ese blint­zes, krep­lach, knis­hes stuf­fed with po­ta­to or chic­ken li­ver, and ve­ge­tab­les that of­ten we­re co­oked in ren­de­red chic­ken or duck fat. I ne­ver ate any of that stuff as a kid, ex­cept when I vi­si­ted my grand­pa­rents. My mot­her, an ex­cel­lent and ad­ven­tu­ro­us co­ok who­se own me­nus we­re sha­ped by the cos­mo­po­li­tan fo­od trends of New York in the 1960s (her inf­lu­en­ces wo­uld ha­ve inc­lu­ded the 1964 World’s Fa­ir; Julia Child and Cra­ig Cla­ibor­ne; Man­hat­tan res­ta­urant me­nus of the ti­me; and of co­ur­se the ri­sing drum­be­at of fo­od mar­ke­ting) ser­ved us a ro­ta­ting me­nu that each we­ek comp­le­ted a cu­li­nary world to­ur: be­o­uf bo­ur­gu­ig­non or be­ef Stro­ga­noff on Mon­day; coq au vin or oven-fri­ed chic­ken (in a Kel­logg’s Cornf­la­kes crust) on Tu­es­day; me­at lo­af or Chi­ne­se pep­per ste­ak on Wed­nes­day (yes, the­re was a lot of be­ef); spag­het­ti po­mo­do­ro with Ita­li­an sa­usa­ges on Thurs­day; and on her we­ekend nights off, a Swan­son’s TV din­ner or Chi­ne­se ta­ke­o­ut. She co­oked with Cris­co or Wes­son oil rat­her than chic­ken or duck fat and used mar­ga­ri­ne rat­her than but­ter be­ca­use she’d ab­sor­bed the nut­ri­ti­onal ort­ho­doxy of the ti­me, which held that the­se mo­re up-to-da­te fats we­re bet­ter for our he­alth. (Oops.)

  No­wa­days I don’t eat any of that stuff-and ne­it­her do­es my mot­her, who has mo­ved on too. Her pa­rents wo­uldn’t re­cog­ni­ze the fo­ods we put on the tab­le, ex­cept may­be the but­ter, which is back. To­day in Ame­ri­ca the cul­tu­re of fo­od is chan­ging mo­re than on­ce a ge­ne­ra­ti­on, which is his­to­ri­cal­ly unp­re­ce­den­ted-and diz­zying.

  What is dri­ving such re­lent­less chan­ge in the Ame­ri­can di­et? One for­ce is a thirty-two-bil­li­on-dol­lar fo­od-mar­ke­ting mac­hi­ne that thri­ves on chan­ge for its own sa­ke. Anot­her is the cons­tantly shif­ting gro­und of nut­ri­ti­on sci­en­ce that, de­pen­ding on yo­ur po­int of vi­ew, is ste­adily ad­van­cing the fron­ti­ers of our know­led­ge abo­ut di­et and he­alth or is just chan­ging its mind a lot be­ca­use it is a fla­wed sci­en­ce that knows much less than it ca­res to ad­mit. Part of what dro­ve my grand­pa­rents’ fo­od cul­tu­re from the Ame­ri­can tab­le was of­fi­ci­al sci­en­ti­fic opi­ni­on, which, be­gin­ning in the 1960s, de­ci­ded that ani­mal fat was a de­adly subs­tan­ce. And then the­re we­re the fo­od ma­nu­fac­tu­rers, which sto­od to ma­ke very lit­tle mo­ney from my grand­mot­her’s co­oking, be­ca­use she was do­ing so much of it from scratch-up to and inc­lu­ding ren­de­ring her own co­oking fats. Amp­lif­ying the “la­test sci­en­ce,” they ma­na­ged to sell her da­ugh­ter on the vir­tu­es of hydro­ge­na­ted ve­ge­tab­le oils, the ones that we’re now le­ar­ning may be, well,
de­adly subs­tan­ces.

  So­oner or la­ter, everyt­hing so­lid we’ve be­en told abo­ut the links bet­we­en our di­et and our he­alth se­ems to get blown away in the gust of the most re­cent study. Con­si­der the la­test fin­dings. In 2006 ca­me news that a low-fat di­et, long be­li­eved to pro­tect aga­inst can­cer, may do no such thing-this from the mas­si­ve, fe­de­ral­ly fun­ded Wo­men’s He­alth Ini­ti­ati­ve, which has al­so fa­iled to find a link bet­we­en a low-fat di­et and the risk of co­ro­nary he­art di­se­ase. In­de­ed, the who­le nut­ri­ti­onal ort­ho­doxy aro­und di­etary fat ap­pe­ars to be crumb­ling, as we will see. In 2005 we le­ar­ned that di­etary fi­ber might not, as we’d be­en con­fi­dently told for ye­ars, help pre­vent co­lo­rec­tal can­cers and he­art di­se­ase. And then, in the fall of 2006, two pres­ti­gi­o­us stu­di­es on ome­ga-3 fats pub­lis­hed at the sa­me ti­me ca­me to stri­kingly dif­fe­rent conc­lu­si­ons. Whi­le the Ins­ti­tu­te of Me­di­ci­ne at the Na­ti­onal Aca­demy of Sci­en­ces fo­und lit­tle conc­lu­si­ve evi­den­ce that eating fish wo­uld do yo­ur he­art much go­od (and might hurt yo­ur bra­in, be­ca­use so much fish is con­ta­mi­na­ted with mer­cury), a Har­vard study bro­ught the ho­pe­ful pi­ece of news that simply by eating a co­up­le of ser­vings of fish each we­ek (or by dow­ning eno­ugh fish oil tab­lets) you co­uld cut yo­ur risk of dying from a he­art at­tack by mo­re than a third. It’s no won­der that ome­ga-3 fatty acids are po­ised to be­co­me the oat bran of our ti­me as fo­od sci­en­tists rush to mic­ro­en­cap­su­la­te fish and al­gae oil and blast it in­to such for­merly all-ter­rest­ri­al fo­ods as bre­ad and pas­ta, milk and yo­gurt and che­ese, all of which will so­on, you can be su­re, spo­ut fishy new he­alth cla­ims. (I ho­pe you re­mem­ber the re­le­vant ru­le.)

  By now you’re pro­bably fe­eling the cog­ni­ti­ve dis­so­nan­ce of the su­per­mar­ket shop­per or sci­en­ce-sec­ti­on re­ader as well as so­me nos­tal­gia for the simp­li­city and so­li­dity of the first few words of this bo­ok. Words I’m still pre­pa­red to de­fend aga­inst the shif­ting winds of nut­ri­ti­onal sci­en­ce and fo­od-industry mar­ke­ting, and will. But be­fo­re I do, it’s im­por­tant to un­ders­tand how we ar­ri­ved at our pre­sent sta­te of nut­ri­ti­onal con­fu­si­on and an­xi­ety. That is the su­bj­ect of the first por­ti­on of this bo­ok, “The Age of Nut­ri­ti­onism.”

  The story of how the most ba­sic qu­es­ti­ons abo­ut what to eat ever got so comp­li­ca­ted re­ve­als a gre­at de­al abo­ut the ins­ti­tu­ti­onal im­pe­ra­ti­ves of the fo­od in­dustry, nut­ri­ti­on sci­en­ce, and-ahem-jo­ur­na­lism, three par­ti­es that stand to ga­in much from wi­desp­re­ad con­fu­si­on sur­ro­un­ding the most ele­men­tal qu­es­ti­on an om­ni­vo­re conf­ronts. But hu­mans de­ci­ding what to eat wit­ho­ut pro­fes­si­onal gu­idan­ce-so­met­hing they ha­ve be­en do­ing with no­tab­le suc­cess sin­ce co­ming down out of the tre­es-is se­ri­o­usly unp­ro­fi­tab­le if you’re a fo­od com­pany, a de­fi­ni­te ca­re­er lo­ser if you’re a nut­ri­ti­onist, and just pla­in bo­ring if you’re a news­pa­per edi­tor or re­por­ter. (Or, for that mat­ter, an eater. Who wants to he­ar, yet aga­in, that you sho­uld “eat mo­re fru­its and ve­ge­tab­les”?) And so li­ke a lar­ge gray clo­ud, a gre­at Cons­pi­racy of Sci­en­ti­fic Comp­le­xity has gat­he­red aro­und the simp­lest qu­es­ti­ons of nut­ri­ti­on-much to the ad­van­ta­ge of ever­yo­ne in­vol­ved. Ex­cept per­haps the sup­po­sed be­ne­fi­ci­ary of all this nut­ri­ti­onal ad­vi­ce: us, and our he­alth and hap­pi­ness as eaters. For the most im­por­tant thing to know abo­ut the cam­pa­ign to pro­fes­si­ona­li­ze di­etary ad­vi­ce is that it has not ma­de us any he­alt­hi­er. To the cont­rary: As I ar­gue in part one, most of the nut­ri­ti­onal ad­vi­ce we’ve re­ce­ived over the last half cen­tury (and in par­ti­cu­lar the ad­vi­ce to rep­la­ce the fats in our di­ets with car­bohyd­ra­tes) has ac­tu­al­ly ma­de us less he­althy and con­si­de­rably fat­ter.

  My aim in this bo­ok is to help us rec­la­im our he­alth and hap­pi­ness as eaters. To do this re­qu­ires an exer­ci­se that might at first blush se­em un­ne­ces­sary, if not ab­surd: to of­fer a de­fen­se of fo­od and the eating the­re­of. That fo­od and eating stand in ne­ed of a de­fen­se might se­em co­un­te­rin­tu­iti­ve at a ti­me when “over­nut­ri­ti­on” is emer­ging as a mo­re se­ri­o­us thre­at to pub­lic he­alth than un­der­nut­ri­ti­on. But I con­tend that most of what we’re con­su­ming to­day is no lon­ger, strictly spe­aking, fo­od at all, and how we’re con­su­ming it-in the car, in front of the TV, and, inc­re­asingly, alo­ne-is not re­al­ly eating, at le­ast not in the sen­se that ci­vi­li­za­ti­on has long un­ders­to­od the term. Je­an-Anthel­me Bril­lat-Sa­va­rin, the eigh­te­enth-cen­tury gast­ro­no­mist, drew a use­ful dis­tinc­ti­on bet­we­en the ali­men­tary ac­ti­vity of ani­mals, which “fe­ed,” and hu­mans, who eat, or di­ne, a prac­ti­ce, he sug­ges­ted, that owes as much to cul­tu­re as it do­es to bi­ology.

  But if fo­od and eating stand in ne­ed of a de­fen­se, from whom, or what, do they ne­ed de­fen­ding? From nut­ri­ti­on sci­en­ce on one si­de and from the fo­od in­dustry on the ot­her-and from the ne­ed­less comp­li­ca­ti­ons aro­und eating that to­get­her they ha­ve fos­te­red. As eaters we find our­sel­ves inc­re­asingly in the grip of a Nut­ri­ti­onal In­dust­ri­al Comp­lex-comp­ri­sed of well-me­aning, if er­ror-pro­ne, sci­en­tists and fo­od mar­ke­ters only too eager to exp­lo­it every shift in the nut­ri­ti­onal con­sen­sus. To­get­her, and with so­me cru­ci­al help from the go­vern­ment, they ha­ve const­ruc­ted an ide­ology of nut­ri­ti­onism that, among ot­her things, has con­vin­ced us of three per­ni­ci­o­us myths: that what mat­ters most is not the fo­od but the “nut­ri­ent”; that be­ca­use nut­ri­ents are in­vi­sib­le and in­comp­re­hen­sib­le to ever­yo­ne but sci­en­tists, we ne­ed ex­pert help in de­ci­ding what to eat; and that the pur­po­se of eating is to pro­mo­te a nar­row con­cept of physi­cal he­alth. Be­ca­use fo­od in this vi­ew is fo­re­most a mat­ter of bi­ology, it fol­lows that we must try to eat “sci­en­ti­fi­cal­ly”-by the nut­ri­ent and the num­ber and un­der the gu­idan­ce of ex­perts.

  If such an ap­pro­ach to fo­od do­esn’t stri­ke you as the le­ast bit stran­ge, that is pro­bably be­ca­use nut­ri­ti­onist thin­king has be­co­me so per­va­si­ve as to be in­vi­sib­le. We for­get that, his­to­ri­cal­ly, pe­op­le ha­ve eaten for a gre­at many re­asons ot­her than bi­olo­gi­cal ne­ces­sity. Fo­od is al­so abo­ut ple­asu­re, abo­ut com­mu­nity, abo­ut fa­mily and spi­ri­tu­ality, abo­ut our re­la­ti­ons­hip to the na­tu­ral world, and abo­ut exp­res­sing our iden­tity. As long as hu­mans ha­ve be­en ta­king me­als to­get­her, eating has be­en as much abo­ut cul­tu­re as it has be­en abo­ut bi­ology.

  That eating sho­uld be fo­re­most abo­ut bo­dily he­alth is a re­la­ti­vely new and, I think, dest­ruc­ti­ve idea-dest­ruc­ti­ve not just of the ple­asu­re of eating, which wo­uld be bad eno­ugh, but pa­ra­do­xi­cal­ly of our he­alth as well. In­de­ed, no pe­op­le on earth worry mo­re abo­ut the he­alth con­se­qu­en­ces of the­ir fo­od cho­ices than we Ame­ri­cans do-and no pe­op­le suf­fer from as many di­et-re­la­ted he­alth prob­lems. We are be­co­ming a na­ti­on of ort­ho­re­xics: pe­op­le with an un­he­althy ob­ses­si­on with he­althy eating.*

  The sci­en­tists ha­ven’t tes­ted the hypot­he­sis yet, but I’m wil­ling to bet that when they do they’ll find an in­ver­se cor­re­la­ti­on bet­we­en the amo­unt of ti­me pe­op­le spend wor­rying abo­ut nut­ri­ti­on and the­ir ove­rall he­alth and hap­pi­ness. This is, af­ter all, the imp­li­cit les­son of the French pa­ra­dox, so-cal­led not by the French (Qu­el pa­ra­do­xe
?) but by Ame­ri­can nut­ri­ti­onists, who can’t fat­hom how a pe­op­le who enj­oy the­ir fo­od as much as the French do, and blit­hely eat so many nut­ri­ents de­emed to­xic by nut­ri­ti­onists, co­uld ha­ve subs­tan­ti­al­ly lo­wer ra­tes of he­art di­se­ase than we do on our ela­bo­ra­tely en­gi­ne­ered low-fat di­ets. May­be it’s ti­me we conf­ron­ted the Ame­ri­can pa­ra­dox: a no­tably un­he­althy po­pu­la­ti­on pre­oc­cu­pi­ed with nut­ri­ti­on and di­et and the idea of eating he­alt­hily.

  I don’t me­an to sug­gest that all wo­uld be well if we co­uld just stop wor­rying abo­ut fo­od or the sta­te of our di­etary he­alth: Let them eat Twin­ki­es! The­re are in fact so­me very go­od re­asons to worry. The ri­se of nut­ri­ti­onism ref­lects le­gi­ti­ma­te con­cerns that the Ame­ri­can di­et, which is well on its way to be­co­ming the world’s di­et, has chan­ged in ways that are ma­king us inc­re­asingly sick and fat. Fo­ur of the top ten ca­uses of de­ath to­day are chro­nic di­se­ases with well-estab­lis­hed links to di­et: co­ro­nary he­art di­se­ase, di­abe­tes, stro­ke, and can­cer. Yes, the ri­se to pro­mi­nen­ce of the­se chro­nic di­se­ases is partly due to the fact that we’re not dying ear­li­er in li­fe of in­fec­ti­o­us di­se­ases, but only partly: Even af­ter adj­us­ting for age, many of the so-cal­led di­se­ases of ci­vi­li­za­ti­on we­re far less com­mon a cen­tury ago-and they re­ma­in ra­re in pla­ces whe­re pe­op­le don’t eat the way we do.

  I’m spe­aking, of co­ur­se, of the elep­hant in the ro­om whe­ne­ver we dis­cuss di­et and he­alth: “the Wes­tern di­et.” This is the su­bj­ect of the se­cond part of the bo­ok, in which I fol­low the story of the most ra­di­cal chan­ge to the way hu­mans eat sin­ce the dis­co­very of ag­ri­cul­tu­re. All of our un­cer­ta­in­ti­es abo­ut nut­ri­ti­on sho­uld not obs­cu­re the pla­in fact that the chro­nic di­se­ases that now kill most of us can be tra­ced di­rectly to the in­dust­ri­ali­za­ti­on of our fo­od: the ri­se of highly pro­ces­sed fo­ods and re­fi­ned gra­ins; the use of che­mi­cals to ra­ise plants and ani­mals in hu­ge mo­no­cul­tu­res; the su­pe­ra­bun­dan­ce of che­ap ca­lo­ri­es of su­gar and fat pro­du­ced by mo­dern ag­ri­cul­tu­re; and the nar­ro­wing of the bi­olo­gi­cal di­ver­sity of the hu­man di­et to a tiny hand­ful of stap­le crops, no­tably whe­at, corn, and soy. The­se chan­ges ha­ve gi­ven us the Wes­tern di­et that we ta­ke for gran­ted: lots of pro­ces­sed fo­ods and me­at, lots of ad­ded fat and su­gar, lots of ever­y­t­hing-except ve­ge­tab­les, fru­its, and who­le gra­ins.

 

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