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pktechgirlbackupPollan seems to think that replacing food with science in physically impossible- that there's something magic about growing it and then serving it in culturally meaningful ways. My opinion is that replacing food is beyond current science, and will probably be so for generations, and that the eventual science solution will probably involve modifying existing food rather than test tubes, but it's not *impossible*.
There's a weaker form of his argument I do believe: the pursuit of the supernutrient of the moment inevitably drives us to diminish our consumption of other nutrients, for a net loss to health.
He doesn't seem to realize/acknowledge how crap many farmers' and primitive societies' diets were/are. nor does he acknowledge the difference in calorie requirements between cavewomen and me- she needed more calories and had foot with a larger nutrient:calorie ratio. If I limited myself to foods she ate, it's physically impossible for me to get enough nutrients.
He also seems to think that eating like our ancestors did will produce a healthy weight that just happens to be equal to the fashionable thinness we all aspire to. That seems odd to me, given that for most of the time these traditional diets were being consumed, the ideal weight was much much higher.
He pretty much agrees with me that organic is a useless label, that what's important is avoiding factory farming and monoculture. Unfortunately, this is much harder to check in the super market.
Luckily, there's an incredibly simple rule of thumb: nutritional value is positively correlated to spoil rate. I left (organic, but nonetheless fake) pre-packaged macaroni and cheese out for three days, and it was still edible. No food should do that. If it's not good enough for bacteria, it's not good enough for humans.
He fails to acknowledge that while preservative technologies probably are a net negative now, they were a huge step forward at the time, saving people from disease and starvation, and letting them up their dietary diversity, and that in many areas the choice is preservatives or long distance transport (which he's also against). As a country we are incredibly wealthy to be able to be able to suffer that loss due to rotting.
Buying local has some merit: all else being equal, food that is bred to travel well will not be as good as food without that selective pressure (remember, nutrition=capacity to rot). But there are only a few places in the world where one can eat a diverse local diet year round. On the other hand, if your region always produces at least a few things, the loss of variety in a day might be made up for in the diversity in a year, because going seasonal will force you to try things you otherwise wouldn't. On the third hand, you have the frozen tundra that is the northeastern united states. I don't even want to think about what Canada would do.
There's a weaker form of his argument I do believe: the pursuit of the supernutrient of the moment inevitably drives us to diminish our consumption of other nutrients, for a net loss to health.
He doesn't seem to realize/acknowledge how crap many farmers' and primitive societies' diets were/are. nor does he acknowledge the difference in calorie requirements between cavewomen and me- she needed more calories and had foot with a larger nutrient:calorie ratio. If I limited myself to foods she ate, it's physically impossible for me to get enough nutrients.
He also seems to think that eating like our ancestors did will produce a healthy weight that just happens to be equal to the fashionable thinness we all aspire to. That seems odd to me, given that for most of the time these traditional diets were being consumed, the ideal weight was much much higher.
He pretty much agrees with me that organic is a useless label, that what's important is avoiding factory farming and monoculture. Unfortunately, this is much harder to check in the super market.
Luckily, there's an incredibly simple rule of thumb: nutritional value is positively correlated to spoil rate. I left (organic, but nonetheless fake) pre-packaged macaroni and cheese out for three days, and it was still edible. No food should do that. If it's not good enough for bacteria, it's not good enough for humans.
He fails to acknowledge that while preservative technologies probably are a net negative now, they were a huge step forward at the time, saving people from disease and starvation, and letting them up their dietary diversity, and that in many areas the choice is preservatives or long distance transport (which he's also against). As a country we are incredibly wealthy to be able to be able to suffer that loss due to rotting.
Buying local has some merit: all else being equal, food that is bred to travel well will not be as good as food without that selective pressure (remember, nutrition=capacity to rot). But there are only a few places in the world where one can eat a diverse local diet year round. On the other hand, if your region always produces at least a few things, the loss of variety in a day might be made up for in the diversity in a year, because going seasonal will force you to try things you otherwise wouldn't. On the third hand, you have the frozen tundra that is the northeastern united states. I don't even want to think about what Canada would do.
