During this week’s crash course in the industrialization of food there have been a few things that have given me pause to consider. I graduated high school at the age of 18, weighing 310 pounds, with absolutely zero idea of nutrition. Currently at 28 I stay around 215 pounds, and I am always trying to keep up to date with the newest information and tweak my diet with more solid, and scientifically back information that I find. Scientifically in my mind, being accepted by large amounts and different scientists.’ I have learned how to read labels, search ingredients, and question a lot of the knowledge and claims around me. However in reading In Defense of Food, I am a bit appalled at the fact that the US government and the scientific community literally use the public as guinea pigs for their engineered “food.” I grew up eating margarine because my grandparents thought that it was a healthy alternative to butter, but as we learn in the book, it is basically modified with every ingredient that is scientifically trendy at the time. My question is how can the government / FDA get away with such things? Is it because we are bad consumers (or good depending on how you look at it) and don’t really pay attention to what we eat, or is because there are so few people that question that they are considered to be in the extreme? Is there a way that a person, even just a small family can actively change what is going on in the world around us? If so, how, and what will it take for people to actually start caring about the public good, and not producing the types of “food” found in the supermarkets of the world today?
I also wanted to share my biggest disappointment…in finding out Diet Soda is not really good for you, and it contributes to the storage of belly fat. It took my a long two years to finally fully quit drinking it!
Glad you came to that realization! Great read!
Hello!
That is really neat that you were able to lose that much weight from changing your diet. Even though I may not have experienced it in that extreme, I have experienced differences in myself when I change my diet. I see more mood changes and activity levels when I am eating more “whole foods,” versus when I eat a bunch of processed foods. This reading was interesting to me in the same way, it brought up that we have basically just been guinea pigs to the latest fad and many people have suffered because of that. I grew up eating margarine and drinking diet soda and it was freaky when we were all told that those things were bad for us. My parents continue in this practice, but I have since strayed away from soda in general and I always try to use butter over margarine whenever possible. The problems that I see, in the world and within my family, is that these foods are still regarded as “healthy” to many because that is what they were raised on. It might be because it was pushed so forcefully by the “experts” in the field and many of us don’t have the knowledge or motivation to refute it. Even now, with the available information there is much of this, but we still are better informed today than we have been in the past and I believe that is why so much is coming to light now.
I enjoyed reading your post. I also have a similar memory about margarine. I grew up eating margarine as well, and I remember my parents talking about it as a healthy alternative to butter. It has been only a couple years that I switched from margarine to butter after reading an article about butter being a better choice. After reading Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, I will be sticking with butter, yet who knows what the new information soon will tweak my choice in front of the isle of butters and butter-like substances. Unfortunately, unless you are one of the few experts, most people rely heavily on the news from public and media to tell you what to eat and what to avoid. You brought up great questions regarding responsibilities of nutritionism, wondering how the government /FDA get away with approving such a misleading information towards the public, putting their health at risk. Of course, we can educate ourselves to become smarter consumers, who can distinguish food from food like substance, however, the influence of the government is immensely critical. Although, on an individual level, our best defense of the food like substance will be paying close attention to the political ecology of the world food system, taking a class like this one.
Congratulations on quitting Diet Soda!