Food "science"
Aug. 6th, 2007 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoHere is a really excellent essay on the golden calf that is nutritionism. (Link provided by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
herefox.) Yes, it's long. If you're the type who can't maintain an attention span for more than a few sentences, I still urge you to get through the first page.
Click here to read, from the New York Times Magazine.
This is a strong and reasoned indictment of the American "scientific" approach to eating that reduces food to nutrients and thus denies that there is any difference between highly processed foods and whole foods. The problem, as the author so aptly points out, is that science can only make recommendations for nutrients that it knows and understands (or thinks it understands.) Thus each new wave of urgent recommendations (the latest being the omega-3 fatty acids) is bound to be rebuked by the next "discovery." In the meantime, the mega-giants of the food industry just change their labels and stuff more artificial ingredients into their products.
The ultimate advice, to recognize nothing as "food" that your grandmother wouldn't have recognized, is probably sound. Asherefox summed it up: eat less overall, and eat a lot more plants (though it really seems to be the leaves and stems, and the flesh of the fruits, that are the important parts.) Eating seeds and roots doesn't count.
This advice is bound to be rejected by most Americans, I'm afraid. It requires a different approach to eating, a different approach to food shopping, and a great reduction in the consumption of takeout and fast foods prepared by chain restaurants. To be more healthy, America must learn again how to cook, how to grow a garden, how to buy fresh produce. In my opinion, this can only be good, but to most people I'm afraid it is now anathema.
herefox.) Yes, it's long. If you're the type who can't maintain an attention span for more than a few sentences, I still urge you to get through the first page.Click here to read, from the New York Times Magazine.
This is a strong and reasoned indictment of the American "scientific" approach to eating that reduces food to nutrients and thus denies that there is any difference between highly processed foods and whole foods. The problem, as the author so aptly points out, is that science can only make recommendations for nutrients that it knows and understands (or thinks it understands.) Thus each new wave of urgent recommendations (the latest being the omega-3 fatty acids) is bound to be rebuked by the next "discovery." In the meantime, the mega-giants of the food industry just change their labels and stuff more artificial ingredients into their products.
The ultimate advice, to recognize nothing as "food" that your grandmother wouldn't have recognized, is probably sound. As
herefox summed it up: eat less overall, and eat a lot more plants (though it really seems to be the leaves and stems, and the flesh of the fruits, that are the important parts.) Eating seeds and roots doesn't count.This advice is bound to be rejected by most Americans, I'm afraid. It requires a different approach to eating, a different approach to food shopping, and a great reduction in the consumption of takeout and fast foods prepared by chain restaurants. To be more healthy, America must learn again how to cook, how to grow a garden, how to buy fresh produce. In my opinion, this can only be good, but to most people I'm afraid it is now anathema.
