Great writers about food

[John Whiting]

It’s impossible to evaluate the claims in that article since no references are given. The papers cited by the CDC (here for example) show only that reducing salt intake reduces blood pressure in hypertensives.

Given that more and more of the population (including me) have high blood pressure, and given that it increases one's chance of heart disease and ultimately failure, that seems to me a pretty good place to start. When the Grim Reaper finally confronts me, he's not going to be interested in any reasons I give as to why, logically, he shouldn't be there.

[g.johnson]

You might be right. However, there is data that suggests a low salt diets can increase risk of cardiovascular disease. There may be better ways of treating hypertension – losing weight, exercise and, my personal favorite because it requires no change to my diet, drugs. I’m sorry if I’m going on about this but salt=satan (like fat=lucifer) seems to have been accepted as a self-evident truth on the basis of little or no compelling evidence.

[jaybee]

I’m sorry if I’m going on about this but salt=satan (like fat=lucifer) seems to have been accepted as a self-evident truth on the basis of little or no compelling evidence.

While ago I discovered upon going to a cardiologist for an exam, complaining of general discomfort. my blood pressure was 190/95! He asked if I had eaten a lot of salt recently. Upon recollection, I was reminded that in the prior several days I consumed large quantities of "gourmet" Virginia roasted peanuts (salted), major amounts of pretzles during a meeting, several large glasses of Clamato juice (salt disguised as a beverage), a fair amount of potato chips, and several dishes of sliced beefsteak tomatos, heavily salted.

I was obviously oblivious to the salt content of what I ate. Dr. suggested that I might do well to reduce my salt intake to as close to zero as possible, and prescribed medication, offering that I was in danger of stroke if I persisted with this level of blood pressure. (Hello!). Between medication and diet, I have brought my BP to within normal ranges.

The evidence that I find compelling, for me, is that the day after ingesting significant quantities of salt (from potato chips, other snacks, soy sauce, salty food, sauces etc.) my blood pressure goes up at least 20 points on the top end, (160-170), my head throbs and the back of my neck aches. After a day or two of reducing my salt intake to a minimum, my blood pressure returns to its normal range and the other symptoms disappear.

(Reminds me of the joke ahout the man who goes to the Doctor to complain that his head hurt terribly whenever he did "this" and demonstrated by lightly tapping his hand to his forehead. He asked what he should do. The Doctor advised him, "don't do that." )

I avoid the salt shaker and eat few high salt foods. except caviar, smoked salmon, olives and sour pickles on occasion.

Anyone who does not have such a reaction to salt, please feel free to pour it on.

[it aint easy being cheesy]

All clinical evidence regarding salt has to do with the sodium which is manipulated for processed foods.

While ago I discovered upon going to a cardiologist for an exam, complaining of general discomfort. my blood pressure was 190/95! He asked if I had eaten a lot of salt recently. Upon recollection, I was reminded that in the prior several days I consumed large quantities of "gourmet" Virginia roasted peanuts (salted), major amounts of pretzles during a meeting, several large glasses of Clamato juice (salt disguised as a beverage), a fair amount of potato chips, and several dishes of sliced beefsteak tomatos, heavily salted.

It is almost impossible to ingest enough table salt for it to be bad for you.

Your body would make you quit before it had any adverse effects.

When companies manipulate sodium or compounds which have the same effect as sodium to no longer have that "salty" taste on the tounge they then have the ability to add more and more to meet their desired needs.

Try at home to make potato chips and salt them. Then see how much sodium is in a bag of chips for the same portion.

YOU WILL BE SHOCKED

[jaybee]

It is almost impossible to ingest enough table salt for it to be bad for you.

Your body would make you quit before it had any adverse effects.

So you are suggesting that the rise in my BPto dangerous levels immediately following ingestion of great quantities of salt is caused by .....what?

[John Whiting]

When evaluating scientific evidence, it is now essential to determine which scientist, which project, and which sponsor paid for the research. Evidence concerning nutrition is inherently no more reliable than the evidence of reputable scientists who for years maintained that there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. An essential new source comes from the University of California Press:

IN "Food Politics," Marion Nestle's telling book on the food industry's influence on nutrition and health, she asserts that one of the ways the industry intimidates its critics is by suing them.

As if on cue, the Sugar Association has threatened to sue Dr. Nestle, professor and chairwoman of the department of nutrition and food studies at New York University.

Dr. Nestle is in very good company: a group of Texas cattlemen sued Oprah Winfrey for making disparaging statements about hamburgers. They lost.

This threat is central to the theme of "Food Politics" (University of California Press, 2002). "Many of the nutritional problems of Americans, not the least of them obesity, can be traced to the food industry's imperative to encourage people to eat more in order to generate sales and increase income," Dr. Nestle says.

Something is certainly making Americans fatter. From the late 1970's to the early 1990's the prevalence of obesity nearly doubled, according to a study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in 1995. That study showed that 14 percent of children were overweight, as were 12 percent of adolescents and 35 percent of adults. Levels continue to rise.

Though not in the muckraking genre of Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation," Dr. Nestle examines what she sees as the industry's manipulation of America's eating habits while enumerating many conflicts of interest among nutritional authorities. Combining the scientific background of a researcher and the skills of a teacher, she has made a complex subject easy to understand.

And she has succeeded in making a number of people who believe the food industry is only giving people what they want quite angry. (And while intimidating as threats of legal action may be, the Sugar Association - which is upset about being lumped together with corn sweeteners - has not yet gone further than a lawyer's letter.)

It's hard to argue with Dr. Nestle's point that food is above all political and that with all its money the food industry can influence what we eat and how much information we are given about it. It spends $33 billion a year for advertising and promotion and countless millions more on lobbying.

"Food Politics" provides a road map of food and politics since just after World War II, when scientists discovered that chronic diseases caused by overeating and lack of exercise were becoming a bigger problem than

undernutrition.

It comes as no surprise that the food industry lobbies Congress and regulatory agencies. But Dr. Nestle has substantial evidence to show how wide its influence is, and how the people the public turns to for unbiased information are no longer in a position to provide it. The food industry, she says, has bought a lot of scientists, nutritionists, dietitians and universities, as well as having co-opted the government. People may argue about whether they have been bought, but the amount of money that has changed hands is well documented.

The companies, Dr. Nestle says, "routinely provide information and funds to academic departments, research institutes and professional societies, and they support meetings, conferences, journals and other such activities. Most nutrition professionals depend on such support, and some actively seek it."

Among the companies that sponsor nutrition journals are Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Procter & Gamble and Slim-Fast. Dr. Nestle points out that fact sheets produced by the American Dietetic Association are also sponsored by the companies: one financed by Monsanto discusses the importance of biotechnology, one financed by NutraSweet discusses the value of aspartame and ** one financed by Campbell's Soup says the link between sodium and high blood pressure is unclear.** [my emphasis]

Dr. Nestle also makes these points:

Corporate funding underwrites entire departments at universities.

Papers presented at conferences sponsored by food companies are sometimes published as supplements to journals, with the companies underwriting the cost.

Nutrition societies routinely seek corporate sponsorship of meetings. At one meeting of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, Dr. Nestle recounts, heads of university nutrition departments were invited to a Kellogg breakfast that featured samples of psyllium fiber-supplemented foods, which the company was test-marketing.

No matter how careful the research, corporate sponsorship casts doubt on the results. "This impression is reinforced when sponsors use the results to advertise or publicize their products," she says.

Dr. Nestle concludes that while most people can understand advertising, "it is far more difficult to know about the industry's behind-the-scenes efforts in Congress, federal agencies, courts, universities and professional organizations to make diets seem a matter of personal choice rather than of deliberate manipulation."  

[g.johnson]

We’re off to Venice and then England (to eat, ‘cos all the food in NYC is crap) tomorrow morning, but a quick response.

jaybee Your experience is completely consistent with what’s known. You have high blood pressure and you are sensitive to salt intake. No one disputes that this occurs. But that does not mean that high salt intake causes high blood pressure in normals. Furthermore, no one knows whether reducing blood pressure by restricting salt intake increases longevity. It’s a plausible hypothesis but only one of many.

John Whiting I think the scientists-corrupted-by-drug/food/tobacco-money bit is exaggerated. I and most of my colleagues have received industry money and I have never been aware of any pressure to change results to suit the sponsor. It certainly can affect the public’s perception of the validity of a study (which seems to be Nestle’s main point) and that’s a concern. But fabricating results is something that a scientist is highly unlikely to do because he/she will be found out and it will end his/her career. (I would not trust studies from a companies own labs.) In any case industry money is not as highly sought after as Nestle suggests: promotion comes through prestigious NIH grants, not easy industry money. I’d guess that most of the studies we have been discussing are NIH funded, not industry funded. Finally (I hear cheering), if food industry funding has corrupted research, why do the NIH and CDC recommend that hypertensives reduce salt intake?

Edit: affect, effect. My brain is mush.

[Leslie Brenner]

Stendahl! Balzac! Brillat-Savarin!

[Leslie Brenner]

Whoops--make that Zola, not Stendahl. It was late...

[John Whiting]

Ah! Now it makes sense. And France! (Anatole, that is.)

[spicegirl]

I have liked the web pages of Robert Bixbaum and John Whiting.

Both are very good food writers.

[Gavin Jones]

First cookbook I bought:

"The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" - Miss G. Stein

And I read one book by Peter Mayle - I am sorry to say - but I was confined to the loo at the time.

[Simon Majumdar]

Not about food as such, but I always find that books that evoke a time and a place are the ones that make we want to eat

There is a feast scene in Mailer's otherwise phallocentric Ancient Evenings thatb makes me ravenous and a scene in Cider with Rosie that is so redolent of times past that it makes me want to scoff a cream tea and "lashings of ginger beer"

Often great writers who bring food into their books are far more evocative than people writing specifically about food

S

[KarenS]

I love MFK Fisher, and read her books over and over. Calvin Trillan makes me laugh. I like Edward Behr and John Thorne too.

[jaybee]

And I read one book by Peter Mayle - I am sorry to say - but I was confined to the loo at the time.

Either you read very rapidly or you loo very slowly.

[Gavin Jones]

Sadly Mayle's leaden prose did not optimise motility.