Recipe for disaster

A paradox exists within this country: our obsession with nutrition has made us fat.

On Saturday, April 16, I was fortunate enough to hear influential food author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food,” Michael Pollan, speak at the University of Portland. His lecture about American food consumption was compelling and eye-opening and should be heard by anyone living in this health-obsessed, yet unhealthy nation.

“Nutritionism,” a term he personally coined, was what he focused most on throughout the night. Four premises account for this clever word. Instead of looking at food as a whole, we are now looking at food as a sum of its nutrient parts. People are now in the mindset that experts must tell us what to eat. Like many ideologies, food is divided into good and evil. And finally, the only point of eating now is to maintain health.

Not all these characteristics sound particularly harmful, right?

One might wonder why it is so wrong to separate certain foods into good and bad categories. We are all well aware that eating a fresh salad with grilled chicken is presumably a healthier choice than a double bacon cheeseburger with a large side of fries.

These black and white notions, however, which assume certain high-fat, high-calorie foods are the kiss of death (or at least a kiss goodbye to that bangin’ body), only add to the problem. Rather than banning chocolate altogether for “health reasons,” it would be much wiser to simply eat it in moderation. Otherwise, we’re all bound to scarf down an entire box—alone—because of the guilt that plagues us.

It makes you wonder who is even setting the standards for what is healthy and what is unhealthy.

“Nutritionism is great for the industry because it gets people to buy more,” Pollan said. “Products can be updated to sell more.”

The government is not going to tell us to eat less; instead, they are going to tell us to buy more of a certain product or vitamin that they label as healthier than everything else.

Walk down any grocery store aisle this week and notice that a huge amount of processed foods—cereal, yogurt, granola bars, frozen foods—all claiming to contain significant amounts of fiber, the hot “new” nutrient. A few months ago, omega-3 fats were all the rage, so these same products were boasting that they had enough omega-3 fats to keep you alive for another 100 years.

Likewise, many foods are labeled “fat-free” or “sugar-free.” Again, this is great for the food industry. We are all confused. Should we eat that low-fat cookie or this whole-grain cookie? Somehow, marketers and advertisers have gotten a hold of our minds, and stomachs, and have persuaded us that certain nutrients are the worst things we could possible put into our bodies. In reality, these ideas are just not true.

Some of us are old enough to remember the SnackWells  phenomenon. These cake/cookie/devil’s food concoctions became popular in the early 1990s for the simple reason that their box labeled them “fat-free.” The makers of SnackWells really hit a homerun with this one. The public naively believed that because they contained no fat, they would not become fat either by downing 24 cookies at once. It was not until everyone started gaining more and more weight that the thought went through people’s heads that maybe sugar was a huge contributor.

Again, though, sugar is fine in moderation. It becomes a problem when 45 extra grams are consumed at every meal with 32 oz. sodas people now regularly purchase. These processed foods—SnackWells, fiber-pumped cereal and yogurt—do not even deserve to be called foods. They are instead, Pollan would say, “edible food-like substances.”

Nutritionism also leads to eating for reasons other than pleasure. “Food is not a product,” Pollan said. “It is less a product than it is a relationship.” I am a firm believer in this principle. Eating is vital for our survival and, yes, health, but it is also a central aspect of our everyday, social interactions. When friends get together, they go out to lunch. When families reunite, they cook a big meal to celebrate. When that hottie in your philosophy class asks you on a date for the first time, he asks you out to dinner and a movie. As our lives get busier and more hectic, though, it is easy to push eating to the bottom of our priorities list, and in order for us to get back to a healthy state, we need to realize the precedence that food should be taking.

In order for America to continue to sit on its seat as one of the world’s top nations, we must change our ways of thinking about food. The unreasonable obsession we have with nutrition is not doing the job. Nutritionism may be beneficial for the people behind the food industry, but for most of us, this ideology is a recipe for disaster. ?