Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants: Thoughts on Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food

If we understand ourselves (as we rightfully should) as primates evolved out of the earth and developed in a symbiotic relationship with that earth, none of America's well-known diseases - cancer, stroke, diabetes, heart failure, or obesity - make any sense. There is nothing about the natural world that could promote these kinds of health problems, especially since we have evolved with senses to help us discern what kinds of plants and animals are healthy to eat. Most cultures today evidence this same ability to eat food that sustains their lifestyle, except the most superficially rich country in the world, the United States. The reason for all this trouble here in America (and increasingly in other parts of the world, as cultural imperialism and globalization continue to spread the influence of American consumer culture) should be clear to any of us who have studied evolutionary biology - it is simply because of industrial processing of formerly natural and whole food that Americans have brought upon themselves these havoc-wreaking health problems.

Yet how many of us, however well we understand evolution, have actually internalized this fact to the degree that we absolutely refuse to eat any food that is not made of entirely natural ingredients? What really makes us think that industrial ingenuity will make us healthier, when the country where industrial food processing is at its most intense and pervasive has rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, stroke, and heart disease that have, in the last 20 years, risen to absurd levels? Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto is such a necessary book precisely because even the most educated among us can be confused about what it means to be healthy. The crucial point that he makes in the first two sections of the book is that, even if we have become rightfully skeptical about fast food and fictitious food (margarine, snack foods, soda, and sweets), contemporary nutritional science fools us into thinking about food in terms of vitamins and minerals, rather than as whole foods that have nourished the human race for thousands of years. This reductionist nutritionist approach, after being itself processed by media outlets (how often do we get our nutritional advice from reputable textbooks written by actual nutritional scientists?) reaches us and tends to emphasize specific micro- or macro-nutrients without any food, meal, or cultural context. This makes us all feel as if we will be eminently healthy people so long as we ingest the reccomended amounts of these nutrients, which mysteriously rise and fall in prominence as the (still maturing) "science of nutrition" decides.

While right now it seems like omega-3s will save our lives, the current widespread craze about infusing foods with these vitamins (and remember, even the big companies get in on this because sticking health claims on packaging is just another way to get profit) is senseless until we stop and ask - why did our lives need saving in the first place? Pollan shows how traditional diets, having survived centuries of trial and error and consisting only of natural, carefully grown vegetables, plants, grains, and meats, are consistently healthier for the populations that eat them than the typical American diet is for anyone. Though these cultures have survived very well without a cinch of nutritional knowledge, we Americans often find ourselves looking at the nutrition facts on the back of labels rather than the ingredient list. Pollan's point is that, no matter how many nutrients we discover to be healthy, it would probably be safer and more clear-headed in the meantime to simply see if the food is made of all natural (but be careful - even 7up advertises itself as 'all natural' now), pronounceable, and recognizable ingredients.

In recent weeks, before reading Pollan's book or really knowing anything about his message, I was eating Cliff bars several times a week because it seemed that I was getting a veritable bounty of vitamins in a compact, tasty, oat and soy energy bar. Though I did notice the high sugar content of these bars (around 22 grams!) I felt that this was probably well offset by the great calcium, protein, and other nutritional benefits that it would provide. The nutritionist logic here isn't too flimsy, and these bars probably aren't actually too bad for you, or at least it seems so. But whatever numbers might be able to tell us, successful food cultures around the world can probably tell us more. We have a right to be suspicious of such seemingly miracle foods, if not for any reason other than many things which seem too good to be true probably are. Pollan notes that though science may someday really have a full grasp of nutrition and be able to create an easily digestible superfood, for now we overfed and undernourished Americans would do well to look first at the diets based solely on the kinds of organic, plant-based foods that have been healthily sustaining peoples as diverse as the Greeks, Italians, Japanese, traditional Native American, and Inuit.

After doing away with the hubris of nutritional science and the profit-driven gall of the large processed food companies, Pollan prescribes some very simple principles of eating well in the third and final section of this very readable, well-written, and witty book. He describes what exactly he means by the cover slogan "Eat Food. Not Too much. Mostly Plants", pieces of advice which were originally very simple (and in fact necessary) for our ancestors to follow, but which have become highly complicated in our contemporary industrial era. Pollan, however, isn't arguing that we should eat bare food straight from the ground without any flavoring. He says we shouldn't even necessarily be eating "for" health. Instead, he argues that we would undoubtedly be both healthy and happy eaters so long as we choose local, organically or conscientiously grown foods (sometimes not the same thing - he says there will soon be "organic" coca-cola), and cook them ourselves more often than we currently do. The artificially created flavours of modern industry, while initially satisfying, simply cannot compete with the many natural herbs and spices available to nature and put to use by a good cook (or a good cookbook). Eating natural food, eating your own food at a leisurely pace, and leaving yourself a healthy variety of plants to choose from is the essence of his seven-word slogan.

If the only thing someone takes from Pollan's book is a promise never again to eat any food that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup or artificial sugars like Aspartame and always purchases natural, whole, unprocessed variants instead (if a natural variant of said food even exists), they will have made a guaranteed improvement to their diet and overall health. If everyone in the United States started following this single rule, there would be a revolutionary change in the food industry to start providing more legitimate food to the public at large. Imagine shelves all across America with completely undisturbed sections of snack chips, sodas, candy, and sugared cereal. So long as people were moving instead to the produce aisles, and increasingly afterwards to local farmer's markets, the entire country would be cleared away of millions of dollars worth of medical care, as well as reduce pollution and waste by nearly unfathomable amounts. How simple it seems to give up our Oreos, Fritos, Pepsis, and Lucky Charms for the sake of our health, environment, and livelihood! Michael Pollan's book is one first step towards this deceptively simple, natural, and primordial ideal.

If you don't have time to get and read the book, you should go to www.michaelpollan.com and look at some of the short articles he has posted, especially "Unhappy Meals" which is essentially a twelve-page condensation of the whole book: http://michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87 . This article about global warming was particularly impacting: http://michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=92