Health and longevity

garland
Fri, 29 May 2009 11:11:31 +0000

I agree with my3sons, and I have been plenty guilty of this obsessionism on what is “nutritious” myself.

I’m in the middle of Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” which makes all kinds of great points as mentioned here. Our food system is so screwed up, so that it’s very difficult to eat “normally,” leading to what he calls “nutritionism”–trying to figure out what nutrients are optimal, rather than what foods, and mostly doing a lousy job of it.

Some of his points: as a country, obesity ballooned (so to speak) with the advent of the low fat mantra, which led to copious amounts of refined carbohydrates. None of that is how most people would naturally eat.

Also, the huge increase in sugar in our diet (and to the chemical avoiders here–there is nothing natural about the use of sugar in our society–not the dollops of it in our coffee, soft drinks, etc. nor the sugar additives in most processed food. For instance, high fructose corn sugar is ubiquitous, and absolutely foreign to our systems–personally, I’d take my risks with Splenda before that stuff.)

He makes the point that the French don’t see the paradox in “French paradox”, it’s just eating what makes sense and tastes good.

Nutritionism also takes the pleasure and attention out of eating, so we’re never really satisfied–eating as medicine rather than as cultural and social customs.

Those are just a few of his points (well-documented) that come to mind. I’m not done reading it, but it’s certainly giving me…food for thought.