In Defense of Food

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In Defense of Food Page 2

by Michael Pollan


  That such a di­et ma­kes pe­op­le sick and fat we ha­ve known for a long ti­me. Early in the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, an int­re­pid gro­up of doc­tors and me­di­cal wor­kers sta­ti­oned over­se­as ob­ser­ved that whe­re­ver in the world pe­op­le ga­ve up the­ir tra­di­ti­onal way of eating and adop­ted the Wes­tern di­et, the­re so­on fol­lo­wed a pre­dic­tab­le se­ri­es of Wes­tern di­se­ases, inc­lu­ding obe­sity, di­abe­tes, car­di­ovas­cu­lar di­se­ases, and can­cer. They cal­led the­se the Wes­tern di­se­ases and, tho­ugh the pre­ci­se ca­usal mec­ha­nisms we­re (and re­ma­in) un­cer­ta­in, the­se ob­ser­vers had lit­tle do­ubt the­se chro­nic di­se­ases sha­red a com­mon eti­ology: the Wes­tern di­et.

  What’s mo­re, the tra­di­ti­onal di­ets that the new Wes­tern fo­ods disp­la­ced we­re stri­kingly di­ver­se: Va­ri­o­us po­pu­la­ti­ons thri­ved on di­ets that we­re what we’d call high fat, low fat, or high carb; all me­at or all plant; in­de­ed, the­re ha­ve be­en tra­di­ti­onal di­ets ba­sed on just abo­ut any kind of who­le fo­od you can ima­gi­ne. What this sug­gests is that the hu­man ani­mal is well adap­ted to a gre­at many dif­fe­rent di­ets. The Wes­tern di­et, ho­we­ver, is not one of them.

  He­re, then, is a simp­le but cru­ci­al fact abo­ut di­et and he­alth, yet, cu­ri­o­usly, it is a fact that nut­ri­ti­onism can­not see, pro­bably be­ca­use it de­ve­lo­ped in tan­dem with the in­dust­ri­ali­za­ti­on of our fo­od and so ta­kes it for gran­ted. Nut­ri­ti­onism pre­fers to tin­ker with the Wes­tern di­et, adj­us­ting the va­ri­o­us nut­ri­ents (lo­we­ring the fat, bo­os­ting the pro­te­in) and for­tif­ying pro­ces­sed fo­ods rat­her than qu­es­ti­oning the­ir va­lue in the first pla­ce. Nut­ri­ti­onism is, in a sen­se, the of­fi­ci­al ide­ology of the Wes­tern di­et and so can­not be ex­pec­ted to ra­ise ra­di­cal or se­arc­hing qu­es­ti­ons abo­ut it.

  But we can. By ga­ining a fir­mer grasp on the na­tu­re of the Wes­tern di­et-trying to un­ders­tand it not only physi­olo­gi­cal­ly but al­so his­to­ri­cal­ly and eco­lo­gi­cal­ly-we can be­gin to de­ve­lop a dif­fe­rent way of thin­king abo­ut fo­od that might po­int a path out of our pre­di­ca­ment. In do­ing so we ha­ve two sturdy-and stri­kingly ho­pe­ful-facts to gu­ide us: first, that hu­mans his­to­ri­cal­ly ha­ve be­en he­althy eating a gre­at many dif­fe­rent di­ets; and se­cond, that, as we’ll see, most of the da­ma­ge to our fo­od and he­alth ca­used by the in­dust­ri­ali­za­ti­on of our eating can be re­ver­sed. Put simply, we can es­ca­pe the Wes­tern di­et and its con­se­qu­en­ces.

  This is the bur­den of the third and last sec­ti­on of In De­fen­se of Fo­od: to pro­po­se a co­up­le do­zen per­so­nal ru­les of eating that are con­du­ci­ve not only to bet­ter he­alth but al­so to gre­ater ple­asu­re in eating, two go­als that turn out to be mu­tu­al­ly re­in­for­cing.

  The­se re­com­men­da­ti­ons are a lit­tle dif­fe­rent from the di­etary gu­ide­li­nes you’re pro­bably ac­cus­to­med to. They are not, for examp­le, nar­rowly presc­rip­ti­ve. I’m not in­te­res­ted in tel­ling you what to ha­ve for din­ner. No, the­se sug­ges­ti­ons are mo­re li­ke eating al­go­rithms, men­tal de­vi­ces for thin­king thro­ugh our fo­od cho­ices. Be­ca­use the­re is no sing­le ans­wer to the qu­es­ti­on of what to eat, the­se gu­ide­li­nes will pro­du­ce as many dif­fe­rent me­nus as the­re are pe­op­le using them.

  The­se ru­les of thumb are al­so not fra­med in the vo­ca­bu­lary of nut­ri­ti­on sci­en­ce. This is not be­ca­use nut­ri­ti­on sci­en­ce has not­hing im­por­tant to te­ach us-it do­es, at le­ast when it avo­ids the pit­fal­ls of re­duc­ti­onism and over­con­fi­den­ce-but be­ca­use I be­li­eve we ha­ve as much, if not mo­re, to le­arn abo­ut eating from his­tory and cul­tu­re and tra­di­ti­on. We are ac­cus­to­med in all mat­ters ha­ving to do with he­alth to as­su­ming sci­en­ce sho­uld ha­ve the last word, but in the ca­se of eating, ot­her so­ur­ces of know­led­ge and ways of kno­wing can be just as po­wer­ful, so­me­ti­mes mo­re so. And whi­le I ine­vi­tably rely on sci­en­ce (even re­duc­ti­onist sci­en­ce) in at­temp­ting to un­ders­tand many qu­es­ti­ons abo­ut fo­od and he­alth, one of my aims in this bo­ok is to show the li­mi­ta­ti­ons of a strictly sci­en­ti­fic un­ders­tan­ding of so­met­hing as richly comp­lex and mul­ti­fa­ce­ted as fo­od. Sci­en­ce has much of va­lue to te­ach us abo­ut fo­od, and per­haps so­me­day sci­en­tists will “sol­ve” the prob­lem of di­et, cre­ating the nut­ri­ti­onal­ly op­ti­mal me­al in a pill, but for now and the fo­re­se­e­ab­le fu­tu­re, let­ting the sci­en­tists de­ci­de the me­nu wo­uld be a mis­ta­ke. They simply do not know eno­ugh.

  You may well, and rightly, won­der who am I to tell you how to eat? He­re I am ad­vi­sing you to re­j­ect the ad­vi­ce of sci­en­ce and in­dustry-and then blit­hely go on to of­fer my own ad­vi­ce. So on who­se aut­ho­rity do I pur­port to spe­ak? I spe­ak ma­inly on the aut­ho­rity of tra­di­ti­on and com­mon sen­se. Most of what we ne­ed to know abo­ut how to eat we al­re­ady know, or on­ce did un­til we al­lo­wed the nut­ri­ti­on ex­perts and the ad­ver­ti­sers to sha­ke our con­fi­den­ce in com­mon sen­se, tra­di­ti­on, the tes­ti­mony of our sen­ses, and the wis­dom of our mot­hers and grand­mot­hers.

  Not that we had much cho­ice in the mat­ter. By the 1960s or so it had be­co­me all but im­pos­sib­le to sus­ta­in tra­di­ti­onal ways of eating in the fa­ce of the in­dust­ri­ali­za­ti­on of our fo­od. If you wan­ted to eat pro­du­ce grown wit­ho­ut synthe­tic che­mi­cals or me­at ra­ised on pas­tu­re wit­ho­ut phar­ma­ce­uti­cals, you we­re out of luck. The su­per­mar­ket had be­co­me the only pla­ce to buy fo­od, and re­al fo­od was ra­pidly di­sap­pe­aring from its shel­ves, to be rep­la­ced by the mo­dern cor­nu­co­pia of highly pro­ces­sed fo­od­li­ke pro­ducts. And be­ca­use so many of the­se no­vel­ti­es de­li­be­ra­tely li­ed to our sen­ses with fa­ke swe­ete­ners and fla­vo­rings, we co­uld no lon­ger rely on tas­te or smell to know what we we­re eating.

  Most of my sug­ges­ti­ons co­me down to stra­te­gi­es for es­ca­ping the Wes­tern di­et, but be­fo­re the re­sur­gen­ce of far­mers’ mar­kets, the ri­se of the or­ga­nic mo­ve­ment, and the re­na­is­san­ce of lo­cal ag­ri­cul­tu­re now un­der way ac­ross the co­untry, step­ping out­si­de the con­ven­ti­onal fo­od system simply was not a re­alis­tic op­ti­on for most pe­op­le. Now it is. We are en­te­ring a pos­tin­dust­ri­al era of fo­od; for the first ti­me in a ge­ne­ra­ti­on it is pos­sib­le to le­ave be­hind the Wes­tern di­et wit­ho­ut ha­ving al­so to le­ave be­hind ci­vi­li­za­ti­on. And the mo­re eaters who vo­te with the­ir forks for a dif­fe­rent kind of fo­od, the mo­re com­monp­la­ce and ac­ces­sib­le such fo­od will be­co­me. Among ot­her things, this bo­ok is an eater’s ma­ni­fes­to, an in­vi­ta­ti­on to jo­in the mo­ve­ment that is re­no­va­ting our fo­od system in the na­me of he­alth-he­alth in the very bro­adest sen­se of that word.

  I do­ubt the last third of this bo­ok co­uld ha­ve be­en writ­ten forty ye­ars ago, if only be­ca­use the­re wo­uld ha­ve be­en no way to eat the way I pro­po­se wit­ho­ut go­ing back to the land and gro­wing all yo­ur own fo­od. It wo­uld ha­ve be­en the ma­ni­fes­to of a crack­pot. The­re was re­al­ly only one kind of fo­od on the na­ti­onal me­nu, and that was wha­te­ver in­dustry and nut­ri­ti­onism hap­pe­ned to be ser­ving. Not any­mo­re. Eaters ha­ve re­al cho­ices now, and tho­se cho­ices ha­ve re­al con­se­qu­en­ces, for our he­alth and the he­alth of the land and the he­alth of our fo­od cul­tu­re-all of which, as we will see, are inext­ri­cably lin­ked. That an­yo­ne sho­uld ne­ed to wri­te a bo­ok ad­vi­sing pe­op­le to “eat fo­od” co­uld be ta­ken as a me­asu­re of our ali
­ena­ti­on and con­fu­si­on. Or we can cho­ose to see it in a mo­re po­si­ti­ve light and co­unt our­sel­ves for­tu­na­te in­de­ed that the­re is on­ce aga­in re­al fo­od for us to eat.

  Part I - THE AGE OF NUTRITIONISM

  ONE - FROM FOODS TO NUTRIENTS

  I f you spent any ti­me at all in a su­per­mar­ket in the 1980s, you might ha­ve no­ti­ced so­met­hing pe­cu­li­ar go­ing on. The fo­od was gra­du­al­ly di­sap­pe­aring from the shel­ves. Not li­te­ral­ly va­nis­hing-I’m not tal­king abo­ut So­vi­et-style shor­ta­ges. No, the shel­ves and ref­ri­ge­ra­ted ca­ses still gro­aned with pac­ka­ges and bo­xes and bags of va­ri­o­us edib­les, mo­re of them lan­ding every ye­ar in fact, but a gre­at many of the tra­di­ti­onal su­per­mar­ket fo­ods we­re ste­adily be­ing rep­la­ced by “nut­ri­ents,” which are not the sa­me thing. Whe­re on­ce the fa­mi­li­ar na­mes of re­cog­ni­zab­le co­mes­tib­les-things li­ke eggs or bre­ak­fast ce­re­als or snack fo­ods-cla­imed pri­de of pla­ce on the brightly co­lo­red pac­ka­ges crow­ding the ais­les, now new, sci­en­ti­fic-so­un­ding terms li­ke “cho­les­te­rol” and “fi­ber” and “sa­tu­ra­ted fat” be­gan ri­sing to lar­ge-type pro­mi­nen­ce. Mo­re im­por­tant than me­re fo­ods, the pre­sen­ce or ab­sen­ce of the­se in­vi­sib­le subs­tan­ces was now ge­ne­ral­ly be­li­eved to con­fer he­alth be­ne­fits on the­ir eaters. The imp­li­cit mes­sa­ge was that fo­ods, by com­pa­ri­son, we­re co­ar­se, old-fas­hi­oned, and de­ci­dedly uns­ci­en­ti­fic things-who co­uld say what was in them re­al­ly? But nut­ri­ents-tho­se che­mi­cal com­po­unds and mi­ne­rals in fo­ods that sci­en­tists ha­ve iden­ti­fi­ed as im­por­tant to our he­alth-gle­amed with the pro­mi­se of sci­en­ti­fic cer­ta­inty. Eat mo­re of the right ones, fe­wer of the wrong, and you wo­uld li­ve lon­ger, avo­id chro­nic di­se­ases, and lo­se we­ight.

  Nut­ri­ents them­sel­ves had be­en aro­und as a con­cept and a set of words sin­ce early in the ni­ne­te­enth cen­tury. That was when Wil­li­am Pro­ut, an Eng­lish doc­tor and che­mist, iden­ti­fi­ed the three prin­ci­pal cons­ti­tu­ents of fo­od-pro­te­in, fat, and car­bohyd­ra­tes-that wo­uld co­me to be known as mac­ro­nut­ri­ents. Bu­il­ding on Pro­ut’s dis­co­very, Jus­tus von Li­ebig, the gre­at Ger­man sci­en­tist cre­di­ted as one of the fo­un­ders of or­ga­nic che­mistry, ad­ded a co­up­le of mi­ne­rals to the big three and dec­la­red that the mystery of ani­mal nut­ri­ti­on-how fo­od turns in­to flesh and energy-had be­en sol­ved. This is the very sa­me Li­ebig who iden­ti­fi­ed the mac­ro­nut­ri­ents in so­il-nit­ro­gen, phosp­ho­rus, and po­tas­si­um (known to far­mers and gar­de­ners by the­ir pe­ri­odic tab­le ini­ti­als, N, P, and K). Li­ebig cla­imed that all that plants ne­ed to li­ve and grow are the­se three che­mi­cals, pe­ri­od. As with the plant, so with the per­son: In 1842, Li­ebig pro­po­sed a the­ory of me­ta­bo­lism that exp­la­ined li­fe strictly in terms of a small hand­ful of che­mi­cal nut­ri­ents, wit­ho­ut re­co­ur­se to me­taphy­si­cal for­ces such as “vi­ta­lism.”

  Ha­ving crac­ked the mystery of hu­man nut­ri­ti­on, Li­ebig went on to de­ve­lop a me­at ext­ract-Li­ebig’s Ext­rac­tum Car­nis-that has co­me down to us as bo­u­il­lon and con­coc­ted the first baby for­mu­la, con­sis­ting of cow’s milk, whe­at flo­ur, mal­ted flo­ur, and po­tas­si­um bi­car­bo­na­te.

  Li­ebig, the fat­her of mo­dern nut­ri­ti­onal sci­en­ce, had dri­ven fo­od in­to a cor­ner and for­ced it to yi­eld its che­mi­cal sec­rets. But the post-Li­ebig con­sen­sus that sci­en­ce now pretty much knew what was go­ing on in fo­od didn’t last long. Doc­tors be­gan to no­ti­ce that many of the ba­bi­es fed exc­lu­si­vely on Li­ebig’s for­mu­la fa­iled to thri­ve. (Not surp­ri­sing, gi­ven that his pre­pa­ra­ti­on lac­ked any vi­ta­mins or se­ve­ral es­sen­ti­al fats and ami­no acids.) That Li­ebig might ha­ve over­lo­oked a few lit­tle things in fo­od al­so be­gan to oc­cur to doc­tors who ob­ser­ved that sa­ilors on long oce­an vo­ya­ges of­ten got sick, even when they had ade­qu­ate sup­pli­es of pro­te­in, car­bohyd­ra­tes, and fat. Cle­arly the che­mists we­re mis­sing so­met­hing-so­me es­sen­ti­al ing­re­di­ents pre­sent in the fresh plant fo­ods (li­ke oran­ges and po­ta­to­es) that mi­ra­cu­lo­usly cu­red the sa­ilors. This ob­ser­va­ti­on led to the dis­co­very early in the twen­ti­eth cen­tury of the first set of mic­ro­nut­ri­ents, which the Po­lish bi­oc­he­mist Ca­si­mir Funk, har­ke­ning back to ol­der vi­ta­list ide­as of fo­od, chris­te­ned “vi­ta­mi­nes” in 1912 (“vi­ta-” for li­fe and “-ami­nes” for or­ga­nic com­po­unds or­ga­ni­zed aro­und nit­ro­gen).

  Vi­ta­mins did a lot for the pres­ti­ge of nut­ri­ti­onal sci­en­ce. The­se spe­ci­al mo­le­cu­les, which at first we­re iso­la­ted from fo­ods and then la­ter synthe­si­zed in a la­bo­ra­tory, co­uld cu­re pe­op­le of nut­ri­ti­onal de­fi­ci­en­ci­es such as scurvy or be­ri­be­ri al­most over­night in a con­vin­cing de­monst­ra­ti­on of re­duc­ti­ve che­mistry’s po­wer. Be­gin­ning in the 1920s, vi­ta­mins enj­oyed a vo­gue among the mid­dle class, a gro­up not no­tably aff­lic­ted by be­ri­be­ri or scurvy. But the be­li­ef to­ok hold that the­se ma­gic mo­le­cu­les al­so pro­mo­ted growth in child­ren, long li­fe in adults, and, in a phra­se of the ti­me, “po­si­ti­ve he­alth” in ever­yo­ne. (And what wo­uld “ne­ga­ti­ve he­alth” be exactly?) Vi­ta­mins had bro­ught a kind of gla­mo­ur to the sci­en­ce of nut­ri­ti­on, and tho­ugh cer­ta­in eli­te seg­ments of the po­pu­la­ti­on now be­gan to eat by its ex­pert lights, it re­al­ly wasn’t un­til la­te in the twen­ti­eth cen­tury that nut­ri­ents be­gan to push fo­od asi­de in the po­pu­lar ima­gi­na­ti­on of what it me­ans to eat.

  No sing­le event mar­ked the shift from eating fo­od to eating nut­ri­ents, alt­ho­ugh in ret­ros­pect a lit­tle-no­ti­ced po­li­ti­cal dus­tup in Was­hing­ton in 1977 se­ems to ha­ve hel­ped pro­pel Ame­ri­can cul­tu­re down this un­for­tu­na­te and dimly ligh­ted path. Res­pon­ding to re­ports of an alar­ming inc­re­ase in chro­nic di­se­ases lin­ked to di­et-inclu­ding he­art di­se­ase, can­cer, obe­sity, and di­abe­tes-the Se­na­te Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Nut­ri­ti­on and Hu­man Ne­eds cha­ired by So­uth Da­ko­ta Se­na­tor Ge­or­ge McGo­vern held he­arings on the prob­lem. The com­mit­tee had be­en for­med in 1968 with a man­da­te to eli­mi­na­te mal­nut­ri­ti­on, and its work had led to the es­tab­lish­ment of se­ve­ral im­por­tant fo­od-assis­tan­ce prog­rams. En­de­avo­ring now to re­sol­ve the qu­es­ti­on of di­et and chro­nic di­se­ase in the ge­ne­ral po­pu­la­ti­on rep­re­sen­ted a cer­ta­in amo­unt of mis­si­on cre­ep, but all in a go­od ca­use to which no one co­uld pos­sibly obj­ect.

  After ta­king two days of tes­ti­mony on di­et and kil­ler di­se­ases, the com­mit­tee’s staff-comp­ri­sed not of sci­en­tists or doc­tors but of law­yers and (ahem) jo­ur­na­lists-set to work pre­pa­ring what it had every re­ason to as­su­me wo­uld be an un­cont­ro­ver­si­al do­cu­ment cal­led Di­etary Go­als for the Uni­ted Sta­tes. The com­mit­tee le­ar­ned that whi­le ra­tes of co­ro­nary he­art di­se­ase had so­ared in Ame­ri­ca sin­ce World War II, cer­ta­in ot­her cul­tu­res that con­su­med tra­di­ti­onal di­ets ba­sed mostly on plants had stri­kingly low ra­tes of chro­nic di­se­ases. Epi­de­mi­olo­gists had al­so ob­ser­ved that in Ame­ri­ca du­ring the war ye­ars, when me­at and da­iry pro­ducts we­re strictly ra­ti­oned, the ra­te of he­art di­se­ase had tem­po­ra­rily plum­me­ted, only to le­ap up­ward on­ce the war was over.

  Be­gin­ning in the 1950s, a gro­wing body of sci­en­ti­fic opi­ni­on held that the con­sump­ti­on of fat and di­etary cho­les­te­rol, much of which ca­me from me­at and da­iry pro­ducts
, was res­pon­sib­le for ri­sing ra­tes of he­art di­se­ase du­ring the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. The “li­pid hypot­he­sis,” as it was cal­led, had al­re­ady be­en emb­ra­ced by the Ame­ri­can He­art As­so­ci­ati­on, which in 1961 had be­gun re­com­men­ding a “pru­dent di­et” low in sa­tu­ra­ted fat and cho­les­te­rol from ani­mal pro­ducts. True, ac­tu­al pro­of for the li­pid hypot­he­sis was re­mar­kably thin in 1977-it was still very much a hypot­he­sis, but one well on its way to ge­ne­ral ac­cep­tan­ce.

  In Janu­ary 1977, the com­mit­tee 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, and Se­na­tor McGo­vern (who had a gre­at many cat­tle ranc­hers among his So­uth Da­ko­ta cons­ti­tu­ents) was for­ced to be­at a ret­re­at. The com­mit­tee’s re­com­men­da­ti­ons we­re has­tily rew­rit­ten. Pla­in talk abo­ut ac­tu­al fo­ods­tuf­fs-the com­mit­tee had ad­vi­sed Ame­ri­cans to “re­du­ce con­sump­ti­on of me­at”-was rep­la­ced by art­ful comp­ro­mi­se: “cho­ose me­ats, po­ultry, and fish that will re­du­ce sa­tu­ra­ted fat in­ta­ke.”

 

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