In Michael Pollan’s book In the Defense of Food, his observation that people have become more sickly, more overweight, and less healthy since the inception of the social craze of nutritionism (81) is incredibly interesting. The opposite is suggested by the concept of nutrition, so how could this have happened?
With a heavier focus on nutrition in society, or at least on how to divide foods into groups, it’s as though compartmentalizing macronutrients into “proteins”, “fats”, and “carbs” has assisted people in feeling as though they are living healthier while the opposite may be true (Pollan, 30). They may take in relatively the same amount of carbs and fats in a given day or week, yet think they are healthier because they don’t realize how their bodies metabolize these groups . The way foods are metabolized must be considered when evaluating nutritional value of a food, and is different for everyone. While organizing food into groups of nutritious versus not nutritious, or even toxic, sounds like a good idea, it’s quite possible that “a whole food might be more than just the some of its parts” (Pollan, 111), or a food that may not be suitable for one person is entirely appropriate for another’s body. With that said, there are general rules to follow around eating, and no one should be inhaling sugars or simple carbs. Instead, we could focus on foods that give sustainable energy and not refined and processed foods that can be found in the middle of the supermarket. A return to a more traditional diet is Pollan’s seemingly quite simple solution to a myriad of health concerns that have arisen in popular Western diets that, ironically, obsess over optimizing nutritional value.
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food. Penguin Press. 2008: 30-111.
It is incredibly interesting isn’t it!? Common reasoning would suggest that if we can scientifically cram a whole bunch more of the “good stuff” into a new-fangled food product, then it would be better for us, right? A sum of its parts, as you mention.
I think that the best way to understand why it doesn’t always work out that way is to reverse the process. Take a nice big homemade sandwich for instance– deconstruct it and you could (potentially) have yourself several whole plant foods resembling the same way they grew out of the ground, animal protein that didn’t undergo any process except cooking, whole grain mustard (mustard seeds, vinegar, wine or ale), and whole grain bread that could be further deconstructed into a mere four ingredients (flour, water, yeast, and salt). Now you could still easily eat all of those sandwich components by themselves. But what about deconstructing that “healthy” granola crunch cereal bar with flashy packaging boasting fiber this and protein that? You’d end up with some delicious side dishes of stuff like corn syrup solids, soy protein isolate, carrageenan, hydrogenated cottonseed oil… and a whole bunch more “unnatural foods”.