If you can believe it, I've been a vegetarian (or, more precisely, a pescetarian, although I pretty rarely eat fish) for about 7 years now. You have to make a bit of effort to ensure that you get the nutrients others get from meat, so I think a fair amount of what kind of things I'm going to prepare and eat during the week and about food in general (using, for instance, my favorite favorite cookbook, but then I rather like to cook).
My impetus for this shift to vegetarianism was this book, which made me look closely at what I was putting into my body and why. Up until this point, I didn't think a whole lot about the purpose of food, apart from the calorie aspect; if something were called a food, it would fill me up as well as any other thing. And if it tasted good, so much the better. I do not exaggerate when I say that there were days that cheetos from the vending machine constituted lunch. And I actually took a food class in school that covered nutrition, in addition to coming from a family that ate pretty well and encouraged a healthy relationship to food.
I am lucky that I have a pretty sturdy genetic background (no tendencies toward diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, etc.). I also started to take the concept of good nutrition and exercise seriously before I turned thirty, which is when metabolism starts to slow down for most people. As a result, it's pretty easy for me to make changes around the margins to maintain my good equilibrium and also to indulge when I'm so inclined. I find, though, that I'm less likely to indulge these days because my old cravings (fries from the grill up the street; salt and vinegar potato chips; pop tarts) tend to make me feel pretty ill and bloated. None of this is to say I'm particularly virtuous, just genetically fortunate and economically privileged (I have the education to research things and the money and time to buy better ingredients and cook for myself).
But when you start thinking about the food available at the grocery store, and you start reading labels, it's pretty appalling what constitutes "food" for our cultural purposes. Everything is chemistry and preservatives and artificial everything. Then of course, there's the high-calorie ubiquity of high-fructose corn syrup. Portions are getting larger, both in prepackaged and fast foods. Calorie counts are ticking upward, invisibly since consumers have to dig for this information. Food is big business, is getting further industrialized, and is quite clearly not about nutrition or public health. Why would it be, when the industry's purpose is merely to make us buy more of its products?
So, in the United States, we are developing chronic illnesses at an alarming rate. We are all getting larger. Children are developing Type II diabetes, something that used to occur only in adults. The evidence seems pretty solid on these points, especially when compared across cultures. But if we blame individuals and their choices for these structural problems (it's a whole lot easier to buy fresh foods and have the luxury to cook when you have the income and time, like I more or less do), we can continue the status quo and shame people at the same time. Plus, there's added bonus niches of marketing opportunities for the food industry (low fat!) and the dieting industry. Then there's the sub-sub niche of contrarianism defending of the status quo, so that we can feel better about the effects that all of this has on us.
All of which brings me to this book, which I'm reading right now. The author is a nutritionist who has worked as an advisor for the Department of Health and Human Services and has served on committees for the Department of Agriculture and the FDA. In this book, she does an overview of nutrition policy in the United States from 1900 until the present, and how it, and food production and marketing, has changed over time. And the remarkable thing to note is the consistency of the research on what's healthy and what's not, despite what's popularized and emphasized to us. In short, not coincidentally, confusion reigns, and consumers can continue purchasing.
She notes that in the early part of twentieth century, diseases of nutrient deficiency were prevalent (scurvy, ricketts, beri beri), and government nutrition policy was geared toward getting people to increase variety in their diets to address this (an "eat more" message). Over time, as food became more plentiful (and food production became more industrialized), the health problems of the population changed, and we began to more frequently exhibit chronic diseases of overconsumption: e.g., diabetes, certain cancers, heart disease. Addressing this change (switching from an "eat more" message to an "eat less" one) is the primary conflict in the book and in our health policies and government nutrition advice. Food producers, after all, are understandably in the business of selling more of their product, not less.
It's an important story, although the details of struggles over particular guidelines between industry, professionals, and government agencies with conflicting missions (USDA, which advises on nutrition but also exists to promote U.S. agriculture) can get tedious to read. On the whole, I'm finding it very worthwhile. It also occurs to me that she's also the one who published the aisle-by-aisle dissection of the supermarket, which advises how to choose foods.
Next on the reading list, though, I look forward to receiving my mom's copy of the Ominivore's Dilemma, which she reports is essential reading.
And now, I must exercise, then draw up my grocery list.
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