Saturday, April 23, 2011

In defense of food

I recently read the book "In defense of food" by Michael Pollan. I was reading non-fiction after a long time. I enjoyed reading it and reminded me of many things and so here I am, jotting them!

This is a mutiny against nutritional science and the food industry. 'Food' is what you want to eat. These days, health claims on a food product indicates that its not food at all! Never has the present generation been in greater confusion as to what to eat to stay healthy, stay fit...etc. Since when did food start becoming something detached from culture? According to Pollan, culture is just another name for your mother. Funny way to say it, since according to dictionary, it is breeding, education and 'sophistication'. Food habits are learnt at home, from your family and are integral pieces to becoming a person. Since when did we start viewing 'food' as something whose nutritional value is the solely important thing? And since when did 'food' start becoming more of a 'thing' and less of a relationship?

Sometime around 1960s.

Nutrional science, which is what backs the food industry, according to Pollan, knows much less than it cares to admit. Food industry, nutritional science and journalism all stand to gain from the confusion of us as to what to eat. The past few decades are fraught with ironies. Advice to replace fats with carbohydrates: it has only made us fatter. Eat trans fat, not any other fat. Take less refined food items...the list goes on and on. Is the population really benefitting from all this, as in becoming healthier? The age of nutritionism isn't really doing universal good, is it? Let us reclaim health and happiness as eaters. Let us recall that animals 'feed' whereas humans 'eat' or 'dine', a practice that owes much to culture as it does to biology. I agree with this, since I don't remember savouring a cereal bar as much as a home-cooked kesari with nuts in it, though they might have the same 'nutritional' content in it. 'Food' is also about pleasure, about community, family and spirituality. It is about our relationship to the natural world and expresses our identity. Golden words. Our mothers and grandmothers are authorities in this matter, since they speak with tradition, common sense and wisdom. It is high time we probably stood back and reflected on their actions. A good example is the increasing incidence of 'western' diseases like obesity, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases and cancer. One could attribute this to more sedantary lifestyles of the present generation, but a greater culprit is the food industry, which is seeking to push the population towards listening to them rather than the existing forebears at home, namely our mothers and grandmothers.

Nutritional science has identified 3 important constituents of food- proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Mother's milk is believed to be substituted with cow's milk, wheat flour, matted flour, potassium bicarbonate, since these are nutritionally equivalent. The above 3 are called 'macronutrients' and vitamins are called 'micronutrients'. We speak no more of 'food', but only nutrients. This reductionist way of thinking will stand in our way of growing in many ways and the most important one has already been mentioned above. As we know to happen too many times, many things are not just sum of its parts. A scientist should always be wary of reductionist science. To savour food, to conceive of a meal as an aesthetic experience has been regarded as an act of effeteness, a form of foreign foppery. This is the way Pollan describes it and I think it rather summarises the thought well. To eat, savour and reap benefits of a carrot, I need not know the complexity of the vegetable. Treating the study of food to learn about its parts shows healthy scientific attitude but using partial knowledge to predict the outcome of a much more complex event, which is the act of eating, has to be curtailed. Pollan also uses another interesting term to describe nutritional/food science - 'parking lot' science, where a fellow looks for the keys to his car only under the lights, since it is one place easiest to see. We only look for the easiest explanation of something, not quite pausing to search for answers more thoroughly.

Pollan also mentions a prominent figure, Weston Price, whose theories relating nutrition and health point out the reason for the current set of 'western' diseases. It involves all in all, nutritional factors. Why did we start eating a handful number of things- corn, soyabeans, rice and wheat as opposed to atleast 50-80 different things we can eat as omnivores? These days, 3 apples are necessary to get the same amount of Fe as one (yes, 1!!) apple during 1940s...nutrition getting diluted for a greater cost( apples cost more than what they were)! There is incremental erosion in nutritional quality of food. There are 2 causes of nutritional inflation- the way we grow and kinds of food we grow. Here are some of the ulterior motives of the food industry. Refined seeds. Leaves can provide a host of critical nutrients than a diet of refined seeds can. Antioxidants, phytochemicals, omega3 fatty acids. Although omega3 fatty acids are more 'nutritious' than omega6 fatty acids, the latter is used, because it is less readily oxidised than the former and can be incorporated into processed foods. The former is essential for neurological development and processing. Many more biological events are involved- visual acuity, permeability of cell membranes, calming of inflammation etc. Not to say that omega6 is useless, it is necessary for storage, rigidity, clotting and inflammation response. But who are we to decide to favour one over the other? This is definitely not keeping in mind health, it is to do with capitalistic motives.

In the last part of his book, Pollan suggests a few things that we can do individually to keep our sanity in check and to, reinstate, reclaim our health as eaters. Stop eating a western diet. Avoid processed foods. Don't eat anything that your great grandpa would not recognise as food. Don't eat anything incapable of rotting. Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronouncable(haha, thats a great one), have so many ingredients ( say 25??) and that which includes high fructose corn syrup. Avoid food products that make health claims. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle, which mostly contain processed foods. And let's remember- Many a time, the context in which food is eaten is as, if not more, important than the food itself. Pollan, do all your eating at a table, and no, a desk is not a table...what with our present 'fast' lives, our hands are good enough, I suppose..leave alone looking for something to keep the food. Also, he suggests that we try not to eat alone. I could definitely do with company, for sure. And, last, but not the least, eat slowly. Again, this is distinctly against our present lifestyle.

Some of the above notes from his book have pointed out the importance of not getting carried away by the claims made by the food industry and not stray away from an existing stable set of values from our forefathers on food habits and culture. I hope to remind myself of these from time to time indeed.