Some notes on Michael Pollan's Cooked and David Freedman's How Junk Food Can End Obesity
Link to Freedman
Freedman's essay is worth considering in conjunction with reading Pollan (and I would argue Mark Bittman).
What role does/should food have in human lives? Is there even an answer to this question or is it particular to the individual? Why do these guys write as if there is AN answer, generalizable "laws" that could tell us how to eat "better"?
What is "better"? Healthier? Cheaper? More Fun? Yummier? Quicker? More Diverse? Without having to think?
Pollan seems to be clearly arguing here, and in his earlier book The Omnivore's Dilemma, that we should be eating more home cooked food that uses few ingredients all of which we know the name of and of which come from nearby local small farms and preferably that we do the cooking ourselves. Why? Because it brings us closer to the food chain and makes us better environmentalists. It ties families together to enjoy a meal together. It makes us eat healthier. It makes us somehow more responsible (and all of these things, recognizing that the cow actually lives in a field, regularly interacting and learning conversational techniques with our family, eating non processed foods with few ingredients that haven't traveled a long way, and being responsible (which in this case seems to mean knowing how the food we put in our bodies is connected to many other things) are all good things.
So, we can disagree with Pollan
if we do not agree that these things are good. And/Or we can disagree with Pollan if we think that the one actually creates the other. Or, finally, we could believe that even though some or all of these things are as Pollan says, there are other things that matter more.
Freedman seems to be going after Pollan for his seeming ignorance of the fiscal reality of his kind of eating--not just that this food costs a heck of a lot more ($9 shakes at Cafe Sprouts or the $1 shake at McD's), but that it take more time to make and eat and to actually get--Freedman shares a story of the ten minutes it took for Real Food Daily simply to make him a "low calorie green juice"--this is not FAST food (time that we could be working or doing something else). He is also critical because he says while this is a nice utopian ideal maybe it will never be reality so why not work at the level of reality. People will eat junk food, lots of people and lots of junk food, so how do we make the junk food better and keep it cheap? Freedman details efforts just like that. And, Freedman raises the issue that a lot of this "healthy" food is just as high in calories as the unhealthy stuff (like the vegan cheesy salad booster that has sea vegetables in it, is raw and has no genetically modified stuff in it but has three times the fat per ounce as the beef patty at Big Mac. Granted, you probably will only want to eat one ounce or less of vegan cheesy salad booster so you'll ingest fewer calories at least until you go eat a burger afterwards because you are still starving).
Why is Pollan so invested in pushing his version of food responsibility? Is it as simple as it makes him lots of money. You can't go anywhere where books are sold and not here about Cooked. He's on news shows, NPR and probably lots of other places I don't know about. Or is it simply he believes in it so strongly he wants to share it?
If Pollan is correct and processed food is what makes us sick and obese is the answer to give up processed food or to change it, as Freedman suggests? Why would one option be better than the other? Pollan's avenue seems great for those with lots of disposable income and disposable time (or money to pay others to make them local food in house). And it makes you feel like you've taken the "higher ground" over the people who just don't care enough to do what's best for their family. Freedman's option, in contrast, says what's the most accessible to the most people?
Ironically, Freedman notes, in an area where technology might really offer us some help, we shun it as the evil doer. Get the technology out of the kitchen we seem to be saying. Even something like "sous vide" which can appear to be really "technological" if you use a sous vide machine; is also possible with simple boiling water and a plastic bag.
Let's suppose for a moment that Freedman is right. What to do? Encourage all food manufacturers to focus on increasing good quality production to the extent that it makes fiscal sense to the consumer and the maker. If you can make a whole wheat bun at McD's and people will eat it and it costs .10 more, it's probably worth it. If the only way you can make a hamburger a soy, kale, wheat germ burger is to triple the price, then maybe it's not such a great idea. Sure people can make those burgers but we don't need to push them as the "right way" to eat and abandon fast, realistic food to the garbage dump.
And what about just eating less? Maybe a book dedicated to eating less wouldn't sell much. Hard to sell a restaurant that markets itself because of its small portions. . .
I was thinking as I read Pollan's chapters how big a role meat has played in human development because it has such a high energy quotient and once we could cook it and digest it quicker we thrived. I wonder what would happen if Pollan wrote a book saying vegetarianism is wrong and everyone should have meat in their diet. Where did vegetarianism come from because it does seem counter intuitive to our evolution that we would give up meat. I'm not advocating that people should not be vegetarian, I'm just thinking how it's okay to write a book arguing we should give up McD's and other fast food, processed foods but I don't think people would respond well to books that said give up vegetarianism. . .
Clearly, a healthy diet requires a variety of foods--or does it? I'm not even sure about that. It might depend on the person. But I suppose everyone needs some diversity in their diet so they don't get scurvy or rickets or something. But is there any research suggesting that any diet makes anyone "feel" better than any other diet or is it all individual? And is there a trade off for feeling satiated or really good after a steak dinner (and then later having indigestion) that makes the steak dinner worth something? What is that something? What is that something worth?
Freedman's essay is worth considering in conjunction with reading Pollan (and I would argue Mark Bittman).
What role does/should food have in human lives? Is there even an answer to this question or is it particular to the individual? Why do these guys write as if there is AN answer, generalizable "laws" that could tell us how to eat "better"?
What is "better"? Healthier? Cheaper? More Fun? Yummier? Quicker? More Diverse? Without having to think?
Pollan seems to be clearly arguing here, and in his earlier book The Omnivore's Dilemma, that we should be eating more home cooked food that uses few ingredients all of which we know the name of and of which come from nearby local small farms and preferably that we do the cooking ourselves. Why? Because it brings us closer to the food chain and makes us better environmentalists. It ties families together to enjoy a meal together. It makes us eat healthier. It makes us somehow more responsible (and all of these things, recognizing that the cow actually lives in a field, regularly interacting and learning conversational techniques with our family, eating non processed foods with few ingredients that haven't traveled a long way, and being responsible (which in this case seems to mean knowing how the food we put in our bodies is connected to many other things) are all good things.
So, we can disagree with Pollan
if we do not agree that these things are good. And/Or we can disagree with Pollan if we think that the one actually creates the other. Or, finally, we could believe that even though some or all of these things are as Pollan says, there are other things that matter more.
Freedman seems to be going after Pollan for his seeming ignorance of the fiscal reality of his kind of eating--not just that this food costs a heck of a lot more ($9 shakes at Cafe Sprouts or the $1 shake at McD's), but that it take more time to make and eat and to actually get--Freedman shares a story of the ten minutes it took for Real Food Daily simply to make him a "low calorie green juice"--this is not FAST food (time that we could be working or doing something else). He is also critical because he says while this is a nice utopian ideal maybe it will never be reality so why not work at the level of reality. People will eat junk food, lots of people and lots of junk food, so how do we make the junk food better and keep it cheap? Freedman details efforts just like that. And, Freedman raises the issue that a lot of this "healthy" food is just as high in calories as the unhealthy stuff (like the vegan cheesy salad booster that has sea vegetables in it, is raw and has no genetically modified stuff in it but has three times the fat per ounce as the beef patty at Big Mac. Granted, you probably will only want to eat one ounce or less of vegan cheesy salad booster so you'll ingest fewer calories at least until you go eat a burger afterwards because you are still starving).
Why is Pollan so invested in pushing his version of food responsibility? Is it as simple as it makes him lots of money. You can't go anywhere where books are sold and not here about Cooked. He's on news shows, NPR and probably lots of other places I don't know about. Or is it simply he believes in it so strongly he wants to share it?
If Pollan is correct and processed food is what makes us sick and obese is the answer to give up processed food or to change it, as Freedman suggests? Why would one option be better than the other? Pollan's avenue seems great for those with lots of disposable income and disposable time (or money to pay others to make them local food in house). And it makes you feel like you've taken the "higher ground" over the people who just don't care enough to do what's best for their family. Freedman's option, in contrast, says what's the most accessible to the most people?
Ironically, Freedman notes, in an area where technology might really offer us some help, we shun it as the evil doer. Get the technology out of the kitchen we seem to be saying. Even something like "sous vide" which can appear to be really "technological" if you use a sous vide machine; is also possible with simple boiling water and a plastic bag.
Let's suppose for a moment that Freedman is right. What to do? Encourage all food manufacturers to focus on increasing good quality production to the extent that it makes fiscal sense to the consumer and the maker. If you can make a whole wheat bun at McD's and people will eat it and it costs .10 more, it's probably worth it. If the only way you can make a hamburger a soy, kale, wheat germ burger is to triple the price, then maybe it's not such a great idea. Sure people can make those burgers but we don't need to push them as the "right way" to eat and abandon fast, realistic food to the garbage dump.
And what about just eating less? Maybe a book dedicated to eating less wouldn't sell much. Hard to sell a restaurant that markets itself because of its small portions. . .
I was thinking as I read Pollan's chapters how big a role meat has played in human development because it has such a high energy quotient and once we could cook it and digest it quicker we thrived. I wonder what would happen if Pollan wrote a book saying vegetarianism is wrong and everyone should have meat in their diet. Where did vegetarianism come from because it does seem counter intuitive to our evolution that we would give up meat. I'm not advocating that people should not be vegetarian, I'm just thinking how it's okay to write a book arguing we should give up McD's and other fast food, processed foods but I don't think people would respond well to books that said give up vegetarianism. . .
Clearly, a healthy diet requires a variety of foods--or does it? I'm not even sure about that. It might depend on the person. But I suppose everyone needs some diversity in their diet so they don't get scurvy or rickets or something. But is there any research suggesting that any diet makes anyone "feel" better than any other diet or is it all individual? And is there a trade off for feeling satiated or really good after a steak dinner (and then later having indigestion) that makes the steak dinner worth something? What is that something? What is that something worth?
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