consumer reports on food labeling

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>

> Hey, everybody, here is a fantastic way to start your 2008.....

> IN DEFENSE OF FOOD

>

> An Eater's Manifesto

>

> By Pollan

>

> 244 pages. The Penguin Press. $21.95.

>

> Not all scientific study of Mars is about extraterrestrial

exploration. Some of it is about

> chocolate. 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

>

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/michael_

pollan/index.ht

> ml?inline=nyt-per> Pollan calls " the tangible material

formerly known as food. "

>

> Goaded by " the silence of the yams, " Mr. Pollan wants to help old-

fashioned edibles fight

> back. So he has written " In Defense of Food, " a tough, witty,

cogent rebuttal to the

> proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components

without the loss of

> something essential. " We know how to break down a kernel of corn or

grain of wheat into

> its chemical parts, but we have no idea how to put it back together

again, " he writes.

>

> 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 study. "

>

> Some of this reasoning turned up in Mr. Pollan's best-

selling " Omnivore's Dilemma. " But

> " In Defense of Food " is a simpler, blunter and more pragmatic book,

one that really lives

> up to the " manifesto " in its subtitle. Although he is not in the

business of dispensing self-

> help rules, he incorporates a few McNuggets of plain-spoken advice:

Don't eat things that

> your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. Avoid anything that

trumpets the word

> " healthy. " Be as vitamin-conscious as the person who takes

supplements, but don't

> actually take them. And in the soon to be exhaustively quoted words

on the book's cover:

> " Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. " An inspiring head of

lettuce is the poster image

> for this mantra.

>

> Do we really need such elementary advice? Well, two-thirds of the

way through his

> argument Mr. Pollan points out something irrefutable. " You would

not have bought this

> book and read this far into it if your food culture was intact and

healthy, " he says. Nor

> would you eat substances like Go-Gurt, eat them on the run or eat

them at mealtimes that

> are so out of sync with friends and relatives that the real family

dinner is an endangered

> ritual. Other writers on food, from

>

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/barbara_

kingsolver/inde

> x.html?inline=nyt-per>Barbara Kingsolver to n Nestle, have

expressed the same

> alarm, but " In Defense of Food " is an especially succinct and

helpful summary.

>

> Among the historical details that underscore a sense of food's

downhill slide: the way a

> Senate Select Committee led by

>

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/george_s

_mcgovern/in

> dex.html?inline=nyt-per> McGovern was pressured in 1977 to

reword a dietary

> recommendation. Its warning to " reduce consumption of meat " turned

into " choose meats,

> poultry and fish that will reduce saturated fat intake. "

>

> When Mr. McGovern lost his seat three years later, Mr. Pollan says,

the beef lobby

> " succeeded in rusticating the three-term senator, sending an

unmistakable warning to

> anyone who would challenge the American diet, and in particular the

big chunk of animal

> protein squatting in the middle of its plate. "

>

> Mr. Pollan shows how the story of nutritionism is " a history of

macronutrients at war. " If

> the conventional scientific wisdom has moved from demon (saturated

fat) to demon

> (carbohydrates), creating irreconcilably different theories about

the health benefits of

> various foods, it has also created an up-and-coming eating

disorder: orthorexia.

>

> " We are, " he underscores, " people with an unhealthy obsession with

healthy eating. " This

> book is biliously entertaining about orthorexia's crazy extremes. A

recent " qualified "

> F.D.A.-approved health claim for corn oil makes sense, Mr. Pollan

says, " as long as it

> replaces a comparable amount of, say, poison in your diet and

doesn't increase the total

> number of calories you eat in a day. "

>

> Since a Western diet conducive to diabetes has led us not to

improved eating habits but to

> a growing diabetes industry, complete with its own magazine

(Diabetic Living), Mr. Pollan

> finds little wisdom from the medical establishment about food and

its ramifications. " We'll

> know this has changed when doctors have kicked the fast-food

franchises out of the

> hospitals, " he says.

>

> Until then he recommends that we pay more attention to the

reductive effects of food

> science, recognize the fallibility of research studies (because to

replicate the healthy

> effects of, say, the Mediterranean diet completely, you need to

live like a villager on Crete)

> and dial back the clock. Mr. Pollan advocates a return to the local

and the basic, even at

> the risk of elitism. He recommends that Americans spend more on

food: not only more

> money but also more time. Eat less, and maybe you make up the

financial difference.

> Trade fast food for cooking, and maybe you restore some civility to

the traditional idea of

> the meal.

>

> " No, a desk is not a table, " he points out. Though he shouldn't

have to tell us that, readers

> of " In Defense of Food " will be glad he did.

>