“Eat Food.  Not too much.  Mostly Plants” -Michael Pollan

I just finished reading In Defense of Food (an Eater’s Manifesto) by Michael Pollan.  He covered topics such as how to eat, what to eat, and where we went wrong.  It wasn’t anything eye opening for me at this point in time but it was nicely put and a much easier read than the monotony of Good Calories Bad Calories by Taubes where he goes on mentioning every statistic about cholesterol known to man.  Regardless, Pollan’s book brought up many questions and thoughts.  He speaks of the age of Nutritionism, a time period we are currently experiencing where reductionist science has taken food and divided it up into macro and micro-nutrients (e.g. Carbs, proteins, fats being macro and vitamins and minerals representing the micro) in order to figure out how certain things work.  This boom in Nutritionism has perhaps complicated things more than not.  I’m not putting down reductionist science but in this case it tends to make a bigger problem rather than a smaller one.  What the studies that they do can’t measure is how different nutrients might react along with others.  Different combination’s produce different results.  We all know too much sugar isn’t a good thing and that it spikes insulin, but if eaten with or after eating fat, the absorption process is slowed.  The division of all of these nutrients has produced “food” products that advertise a certain health claim.  “Nutritionism is, in a sense, the official ideology of the Western diet” (Pollan 11).  Our food has become divided and industrialized in order to fit and supposedly match the fast track of “progress” that we think we are on.

It doesn’t have to be this complicated.  It never did.  I’m going to refer to the quote at the top of the page.  Life will be much simpler and enjoyable if one would regard those words.  I can’t say I abide by them 100% of the time (there are some days where I bow down to Ben & Jerry’s) but I can say that when I have, it’s made a world of difference.  Plus, with a generation growing up that for the first time might not live as long as their parents, sometimes being more progressive means taking steps backwards to get on track.  Our society is moving so fast sometimes that I think people don’t realize that it’s also important to figure out whether or not what they are doing is going to help or hinder them.  I don’t want to live in a country where no one knows how to cook or have an appetite for real food.

P.S.  If anyone is still interested I’m working on that paleo/primal diet again.  My largest obstacle tends to be my appetite but I’ve made a lot of progress on that as of late.  A website I frequent that’s really been a ton of help for me regarding exercise, nutrition (ha go figure), recipes, and general health news and info can be found at www.Marksdailyapple.com. It’s a really cool site that is pretty easy to navigate.  You can find articles he wrote like ‘the definitive guide to fats’ that gives you a simple straight forward answer to help you on your way.