Are we in as much danger as this author suggests?

[AshB]

I was having a conversation with my dad over dinner earlier tonight, and he told me about a new book he had found out about on the internet.
The author of this book, Michael Pollan, has written other books, all of which appear to link together for they have similar topics.
The book I am questioning at the moment is titled 'In defence of food - An eaters manifesto'.
Now, I am not normally into low fat or healthier alternatives to regular foods, as I find they are generally not much better for you, they do not taste as good, and can hurt the hip pocket nerve. I also believe that they are not in fact any better for me than the original food. I am not trying to promote this book as my way of saying 'I told you so' though.

To get to my point, I am really asking for not only a more mature and educated opinion than my own on this book and food in general (of which a snippet can be read on his website, michaelpollan.com) but if what the author is saying is valid and correct, and if I am right to be skeptical about it.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So what is the author saying?

~~ Paul

 

[KingMerv00]

So what is the author saying?

~~ Paul

The information about the book on the website isn't very detailed. He seems to be a big fan of organic food.

 

[fuelair]

Read Omnivore's Delight by the same author - it is the initial version of this - and this appears (based on data and reviews about it) to be written to cash in on the success of O.D. The (very brief) gist of both is that processed foods frequently have less nutrients and give less help to the body (consider that processed foods, the like of those we have now, were simply not available in the past. Some processing has been beneficial, but definitely not all (taste has been lost in many things - potatos and tomatos I can absolutely verify).
There is a very interesting book I am reading currently whose title is not right in front of me - I will write again later noting it - which is specifically on the history (late-40's through now) of the real and food-industry made-up history of the acceptance of pre-prepared/processed foods. Relates strongly to this.

Note, re-KM00 post, not necessarily organic, just less processed and less grown for transportation purposes rather than for taste/nutritional value. Many of the things required for "Organic" foods are perfectly silly.

 

[casebro]

After all these diet/health/fat/cholesterol studies, what we don't hear is "Those who cut saturated fats live (X) years longer". We do get statistical gobbledgook, which the studies want us to think makes a major difference in life span, but no actual counting of the years.

The Framingham study has been going on for 3 generations, the data is in there somewhere. Of the maybe 10,000 deaths in Framingham, how much longer did one group live?

 

[LibraryLady]

I watched him on CSpan on Sunday, oddly enough. He was pretty down to earth about the food/nutrition/health thing. I have the book on reserve, but I haven't read it yet.

Basically his thesis is that there is no one cure-all, healthy diet, but that our grandmothers cooked better than we do. He explained a bit about some of the FDA regulations concerning equivalent nutrition, but said that there haven't been many studies that really nail down which nutrients are important for preventing disease. An example is betacaratene, which is very fashionable now. However, he said, there is no proof that it is the betacaratene in the vegetables that is so helpful. Also, the word anti-oxidant is a big thing right now, but all plants have them, so it's really not meaningful to say that a particular vegetable or fruit has them.

His bottom line seems to be that we should eat foods that have the least ingredients, not eat foods that our grandmothers would not recognize as such (ex. Gogurt), and that we can eat all the french fries and other "banquet" food we like--as long as we cook them ourselves.

And I have to admit, he made some sense. That's why I want to read the book.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

The information about the book on the website isn't very detailed. He seems to be a big fan of organic food.

As opposed to what? All food is organic. All life as we know it requires organic food, and only organic food. One of my pet peeves, I guess. “Organic” is a word that has a specific meaning, but which has been dishonestly hijacked by certain industries and individuals, in order to deceive the gullible. “Chemical free” is another term that has similarly been misused.

 

[krazyKemist]

As opposed to what? All food is organic. All life as we know it requires organic food, and only organic food. One of my pet peeves, I guess. “Organic” is a word that has a specific meaning, but which has been dishonestly hijacked by certain industries and individuals, in order to deceive the gullible. “Chemical free” is another term that has similarly been misused.

Hehe... I too hate these terms (can you guess why ?)

"absolute vaccum. The only chemical-free food."

"Drink acetone. It's organic !"

 

[Jimbo07]

Hehe... I too hate these terms (can you guess why ?)

"absolute vaccum. The only chemical-free food."

"Drink acetone. It's organic !"

I like these arguments... except... by the educated, they tend to know that stuff is commonly made of matter, and instead focus on those chemicals synthesized by humans. They are chemicals not traditionally found in those foods. Saying "chemicals" is just a shorthand.

I was listening to an article today. Not every company involved with science and technology is wholly moral. There was this company doing drilling and they allegedly spilled produced water (wholly natural, I suppose) on the ground. Now the salinity would teach your grandmother to suck eggs, and kill all the pretty flowers, but the company (still allegedly) underreported the spill! People have a right to be skeptical of technology companies.

 

[krazyKemist]

I like these arguments... except... by the educated, they tend to know that stuff is commonly made of matter, and instead focus on those chemicals synthesized by humans. They are chemicals not traditionally found in those foods. Saying "chemicals" is just a shorthand.

"Chemicals", like "toxins" and "preservatives", is also a way to frighten people. Never specifying what "chemical", "toxin" or "preservative" we are actually talking about keeps health-food store customers ignorant and free to imagine the worst. One of my favorite example of this is "preservative-free" bread, in which the "preservative" most commonly used is actually a compound that is found in high concentration in swiss cheese. So buying "preservative-free" bread to make a swiss cheese sandwich is a particularly stupid way to waste your money. Those jokes, then, help to show that these terms are free of meaning when employed in this manner (e.g. by those folks who try to frighten you into buying their own supposedly better foods).

I was listening to an article today. Not every company involved with science and technology is wholly moral. There was this company doing drilling and they allegedly spilled produced water (wholly natural, I suppose) on the ground. Now the salinity would teach your grandmother to suck eggs, and kill all the pretty flowers, but the company (still allegedly) underreported the spill! People have a right to be skeptical of technology companies.

Not every company has morals, or rather, an ethical code. The main purpose of business is after all to make money. And, so, the organic food industry is also into making money. Behind the small-business, people-friendly image, there is a money-making machine. They, no more than any other company, are not above lying and cheating.

 

[Fiona]

Nevertheless, at least some real food tastes better than processed food. I can personally attest that free range chicken does have a better flavour and texture than battery produced. Tomatoes and potatoes also, as Fuelair stated. And everything cold tastes better if it is at room temperature and not out of the fridge.

Just sayin

 

[Loss Leader]

My general take is that if Michael Pollan says it, it's true.

 

[krazyKemist]

I can personally attest that free range chicken does have a better flavour and texture than battery produced.

That maybe because those chicken get to move a little more. That would probably change the muscle.

Tomatoes and potatoes also, as Fuelair stated.

Tomatoes taste better if they're not watered too much. The hydroponic varietals tend to be tasteless for that reason. The taste and texture of tomatoes (and potatoes for that matter) also varies among the different varietals. The problem is that industrial agriculture tends to use one and only one varietal, the one that's the cheapest to grow. That's the reason many of our heirloom varietals are in danger of disappearing. That's sad, because some people spent their whole lives developping them. And some are tasty and unusual.

And everything cold tastes better if it is at room temperature and not out of the fridge.

That's because cold stuff has less of a chance to be dissolved/vaporised and tasted by the tongue (or nose). That's why I take fruit out of the fridge a while before eating it, so it can reach room temperature.

 

[krazyKemist]

Some examples of unusual tomatoes:

hawaaian pineapple


Jersey devil

Red cup

 

[Roboramma]

From what I remember of The Omnivore's Dilemma he doesn't really suggest that Organic food is better than the usual variety. In fact he goes on quite a bit about the problems with the Organic food industry - how, for instance, there are factory farms producing organic/free range chickens in a way that only serves to damage the health of the chickens and nothing else.

What he does suggest is that eating locally produced food, and fresh foods that you cook yourself, is both more satisfying and better for health. I can accept that in so much as even if processed foods are necessarily less healthy, the combination of things that we tend to eat when we prepare them for ourselves, as well as the amounts that we eat (and the total number of calories) will tend to be healthier.

It seems reasonable, and I'd like to look at it more.

Another thing he made a big deal about was the amount of fertilizer (and thus petroleum) needed to produce corn, and the amount of food in the north american diet that is made from corn. He suggests that our diets are much less varied than they should be (or at least that if they were more varied, we'd be better off), and that the reason we farm so much corn has more to do with government policy than valid economics.

Again, I don't know all that much, but from what I recall those were some of the things he was saying in his previous book. I'm half interested in reading this new one, if only because what he wrote was clear and pretty well balanced (certainly not a ideological screed).

 

[Bob Blaylock]

From what I remember of The Omnivore's Dilemma he doesn't really suggest that Organic food is better than the usual variety. …

What “usual variety” are you talking about? So far as I know, everything I've ever eaten is organic. Where you live (Would that be this Planet X that I keep seeing referenced in this forum?), do people eat food that is based on silicones, or other non-organic materials? Where I live, there is no such thing as non-organic food.

 

[jimtron]

What “usual variety” are you talking about? So far as I know, everything I've ever eaten is organic. Where you live (Would that be this Planet X that I keep seeing referenced in this forum?), do people eat food that is based on silicones, or other non-organic materials? Where I live, there is no such thing as non-organic food.

I realize that all food is organic, but when people refer to "organic food" they mean less pesticides, I think. Many words have more than one meaning, and definitions of words change over time.

eta: From the New Oxford American Dictionary:

organic |ôrˈganik|
adjective
1 of, relating to, or derived from living matter : organic soils.
• Chemistry of, relating to, or denoting compounds containing carbon (other than simple binary compounds and salts) and chiefly or ultimately of biological origin. Compare with inorganic .
• (of food or farming methods) produced or involving production without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial agents.

 

[Jorghnassen]

What “usual variety” are you talking about? So far as I know, everything I've ever eaten is organic. Where you live (Would that be this Planet X that I keep seeing referenced in this forum?), do people eat food that is based on silicones, or other non-organic materials? Where I live, there is no such thing as non-organic food.

Not that ***** again. Many words have multiple definitions. The definition of "organic" used in chemistry is neither the first nor the only one. Sure, the "organic food" definition isn't the most original and is used as a marketing tool (just like words such as "natural" and "pure"), but it's a valid definition nonetheless (that is, the concept is clearly defined, and the labeling of "organic food" is regulated and monitored to some degree). If you do not recognize that words can have more than one valid definition, I will ask you to please stop using the non-mathematical definitions of the words such as "group", "ring" and "field", because that's just unscientific.

 

[Hokulele]

hawaaian pineapple

What the heck kind of spelling is that?

 

[brodski]

I realize that all food is organic, but when people refer to "organic food" they mean less pesticides, I think.

no, they don't, the mean using unrefined and less well controlled amounts of pesticides and fertilizers, and doing your damnedest to deny animals proper veterinary care.

Organic food is by and large a fraud based on the naturalist fallacy, and it has a nasty side to it. It's much like people who favour herbal medicine because it's "natural".