In Defense of Food; Pollan v. the nutrition biz

[Busboy]

Looks brilliant. Of course, I say that because it seems to confirm my deepest prejudices only more articulately and supported by, you know, science. Review here.

Scientists at Mars Corporation have found evidence that the flavanols in cocoa have beneficial effects on the heart, thus allowing Mars to market products like its health-minded Rich Chocolate Indulgence Beverage.  In the same spirit, nutritionism has lately helped to justify vitamin-enriched Diet Coke, bread bolstered with the Omega-3 fatty acids more readily found in fish oil, and many other new improvements on what Michael Pollan calls “the tangible material formerly known as food...”

In this lively, invaluable book — which grew out of an essay Mr. Pollan wrote for The New York Times Magazine, for which he is a contributing writer — he assails some of the most fundamental tenets of nutritionism: that food is simply the sum of its parts, that the effects of individual nutrients can be scientifically measured, that the primary purpose of eating is to maintain health, and that eating requires expert advice. Experts, he says, often do a better job of muddying these issues than of shedding light on them. And it serves their own purposes to create confusion. In his opinion the industry-financed branch of nutritional science is “remarkably reliable in its ability to find a health benefit in whatever food it has been commissioned to

[Shalmanese]

Slate Review

Blame the scientists. They "need individual variables they can isolate," Pollan explains. "Yet even the simplest food is a hopelessly complex thing to study, a virtual wilderness of chemical compounds, many of which exist in complex and dynamic relation to one another, and all of which together are in the process of changing from one state to another." We'll never understand the biology of eating because it's just too hard to study in the lab.

...

It would help me to accept Pollan's claim to the contrary if I could think of any other topic in the universe so complicated that it defies scientific investigation. Yes, there's a lot to consider when you're looking at nutrition. But is climatology any easier? Should we throw up our hands at the idea of studying global warming, simply because it reflects a wilderness of variables in complex and dynamic relation to one another?

...

Modern nutrition may be more of an ideology than a science, but so is Pollan's nutritional Darwinism. The two ideologies stand in direct opposition to one another, with the science-minded progressives on one side and the culinary conservatives on the other. The Darwinists reject the idea that lab science can be used to engineer public health on a massive scale. They rely instead on the time-tested mores that have always been our guides.

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Health gurus routinely use the same language of ancient culinary traditions to sell fad diets that would make Pollan cringe. Barry Sears, author of the low-carb Zone diet, suggests a return to the traditional food culture of the "Neo-Paleolithic" period, when caveman "decathletes" consumed large amounts of meat and very little grain. In his version, we bungled up the natural selection of foodstuffs when we invented agriculture. Pollan says that happened during the Industrial Revolution. Two evolutionary stories offer very different nutritional advice. How can we know who's right?

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"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I'm happy to follow those dicta if they'll help me to live a longer, happier life. But that doesn't mean I have to buy into the misleading, great-great-grandma-knew-best philosophy that spawned them. I'd rather stick to the science, warts and all.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Shalmanese (log)

[docsconz]

As with most things I tend to be a moderate on this issue. While I am extremely skeptical of bloated health and nutritional claims for any food from either a neutraceutical approach or a holistic avenue, I do think both views have their merits. I agree with Pollan that the field of nutrition is incredibly complex and tends to be oversimplified. In addition, most of the "research" is carried out or supported by industry with clear bias. Seemingly weekly changes on whether specific nutritional elements are good or bad seems to support questioning this approach. Nevertheless, I am against burying our collective heads in the sand and foregoing promising areas of research simply because they are complex. FWIW, I will continue to eat what makes me comfortable and what I enjoy in moderation (increasingly so), while maintaining an interest with a healthy skepticism in the science of nutrition.

[K8memphis]

I like to read the science as well as what amounts to hyperbole. Just as far as the reading of it goes. What I've put into practice in my life/body/health is that I test it on meself. Actually as I've documented here before I first made a guinea pig out of poor Chef-boy. He lived to tell about it. Briefly for anyone who didn't know it was to see how his diet affected his hyperactivity following Dr. Feingold's approach. It was an elimination diet that removed certain foods and additives. It kept the kid off the ADHD meds and he grew to be a nice six feet four bypassing the need and therefore the side effect of those meds that can result in stunted growth.

Over the years, to improve my health I've tried the 3-day non-inflamatory diet proposed by Dr. Perricone and the Dr. Agatson diet of Southbeach fame. And the attention to these Doctor's details helped to improve my health.

These are the only three diets we've ever been on. And my point is that there's such a world of things that can be greatly effected by what we eat or don't eat over time. Not to mention the order in which we eat foods. I'm happy to have determined some things that have worked out well for us by incorporating what those three doctors studied and proposed and I found to be beneficial ie true for us.

Individual products with health claims on the other hand, not so much faith. Healthy Coke? Probably not.

Edited January 3, 2008 by K8memphis (log)

[feedmec00kies]

There isn't just bias in the studies of food science, but the fact that scientists are human. If one scientist claims a dissenting opinion, even if it turns out to be true, they might be silenced by everyone else in the community. Scientists aren't immune to bias when faced with information that counters everything they've heard and believed previously. It's happened before

Maybe I'm reading things the wrong way, docsconz, but I've never been under the impression that Pollan, from the reviews and from reading past NYT pieces, is against the use of scientific research with food in general. I feel like the point Pollan is really trying to make is that people in countries like the United States try to find an easy out to the disordered eating they engage in - they still want to feel like it's okay to consume foods with little merit outside of how fast they can be produced. Food isn't necessarily improving, but scientific claims are being used to say "hey, this is perfectly fine" - like those bags of chips that trumpet the words "0g of Trans Fat!" on the front.

The complexities of human physiology make it very difficult to understand exactly how many processes work; even now, after the completion of the Human Genome Project, we don't have all the answers I think scientists were hoping to have. I think the point to be taken from all of this is that instead of waiting for every "breakthrough" to see a new glimpse of how things are thought to work, we should be proactive about our health.

[pikawicca]

My father, back in the 60's, framed the debate for me. He was not a liberal hippie-type, in fact, the opposite. However, he proclaimed that margarine was the food of the devil, as was all processed food. How could humans make a better butter than mother nature? Eggs? The perfect food. I believed him then, and I believe him now. As a rule, I do not buy any food that comes in a box or can.

[paulraphael]

I don't think there's any major problem with food science or food scientists.

The problems--the 'nutritionism,' the sophistry, the fad diets, the nutrients-of-the-week--come from journalists and manufacturers and diet book authors. These people at best don't know how to interpret the science, and at worst use it deliberately as a source of half-truths from which to spin their sales pitches.

Scientists aren't fools. They unerstand the challenges of their field and the limits of their studies. A scientist studying the effects of grape soda on mice knows that her results are applicable, within a certain range of statistical certainty, to mice. To mice consuming a certain amount of grape soda under certain circumstances.

As far as the applicability of the results to rats, or monkeys, or people, the answer is usually no more confident than "further research appears warranted."

Trouble starts when the journalist, with no scientific education beyond senior year of high school, skims the data. Or when a diet author, or Pepsico marketing ace, sees right past the conclusion to the dollar signs.

Then we see it: Grape Soda Prevents Colon Cancer! Buy Grape, Live Longer! Lose Half Your Bodyweight on the Grape Soda Diet!

So are the people who buy into the hype without any skepticism victims, or are they fools? Further research appears warranted.

Edited January 11, 2008 by paulraphael (log)

[K8memphis]

Over the years, to improve my health I've tried the 3-day non-inflamatory diet proposed by Dr. Perricone and the Dr. Agatson diet of Southbeach fame. And the attention to these Doctor's details helped to improve my health.

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There's so much untapped power in controlling your food intake for a while. This 3-day diet also balances your hydration which is how it comes to improve your skin and guts. As it's the start of the year and folks are thinking healthier in general at this time, I thought I'd toss that bone out there. No extra charge.

Edited January 12, 2008 by K8memphis (log)

[Terrasanct]

He's on CSPAN2 right now talking about this. I wish I'd seen it from the beginning.

[cinghiale]

He's on CSPAN2 right now talking about this.  I wish I'd seen it from the beginning.

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Link here (RealPlayer needed).

[Chris Amirault]

Finally bought this and have started reading it. I don't get the sense that Pollan is out to slaughter science and replace it with Mom. Rather, I think that -- as with much of his previous work -- he is focusing on the corporate interests that determine what is sold as food in the US and how those interests affect research, marketing, policy, diet, and the like.

For example, here's the definition of nutritionism (27-8), the ideology

that we should understand and engage with food and our bodies in terms of their nutritional and chemical constituents and requirements -- the assumption being that this is all we need to understand.

But for Pollan's main point "nutritionism" only makes sense if you also understand the 1973 striking down of the "imitation" rule, which decreed that anything that wasn't itself (low-carb pasta) should be labeled as such ("imitation spaghetti"). The two go hand-in-hand: it's hard to make a case for healthy food via nutritionism if that food is stamped "imitation food." It's those sorts of relationships between product development, lobbyists, and policy that Pollan wants to explore.

Meanwhile, though I'm only 40 pages in, I'm finding this book snarky in a way that "Omnivore's Dilemma" is not.

[Reignking]

I just happened to finish this short book.

This article reminds me of the food products that Pollan disdains; people are voting with their wallets, and choosing products with health claims over others:

http://www.ajc.com/health/consumers-devouring-119813.html

From heart-friendly margarines to sugary cereals that strengthen bones, once-demonized foods are being spiked with nutrients to give them a healthier glow — and consumers are biting, even on some that are little more than dressed-up junk food.

[Reignking]

Pollan was on The Daily Show last night; he has a new "book", which looks more like a handbook, entitled "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual".

Put this new one together with his last and you have a complete book!

[nakji]

I got this book for Christmas and am just reading through it now. The thing that have particularly struck me is the "imitation food" rule being struck down - I had no idea about the labeling laws in the past.