Post 1: In Defense of Food: Agree or Disagree?

The way it all began. . .

The main idea of Michael Pollan's Book, In Defense of Food, is not to undermine the food industry, but merely to examine how American's have reached this point in terms of health and nutrition. He argues that we, as a society, have gone from ignoring traditional foods and methods of preparation to depending on artificially-processed foods foods containing all of the "necessary" nutrients. By reducing the foods we eat only to their "valuable" nutrients, we may be missing out on many of the benefits that come from ingesting the food as a whole. For example, if the vitamin C in an orange was all that was extracted from the fruit, the body would be losing many of the health benefits gained if the fruit were to be ingested as a whole.

According to Pollan and echoed by Dr. Drex Earle, Ph. D. in "The Age of Nutritionism and Pitfalls of the Western Diet", American's are constantly trying to come up with the newest and healthiest way to eat when in reality, we should be enjoying our eating experience much like the French. According to the French Paradox, meals are enjoyed and the eating experience is savored. Following this tradition also leads to much lower incidences of cardiovascular disease and obesity. So even thought the French may not be approaching eating the "correct" way, their ideas seem to be much more functional and healthy than the traditional American diet.

Even so, Pollan urges audiences to eat "real food" and to avoid products that make health claims. He states that "a health claim on a product is usually a strong indication that it is not really food". And how true that statement is. It is increasingly difficult to find food in the grocery store that has not somehow been fortified or altered in some manner but in agreeing with Michael Pollan, I feel that the best route for Americans is to abandon all of our fake, synthesized, so-called "foods", and return to what we have known for hundreds of years. Even though we may not be squeezing every nutrient we can out of these foods, it has kept us alive and well so far, and will continue to keep us healthy in the future.