In Defense of Food

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In Defense of Food Page 10

by Michael Pollan


  So what did Pri­ce le­arn? First, that iso­la­ted po­pu­la­ti­ons eating a wi­de va­ri­ety of tra­di­ti­onal di­ets had no ne­ed of den­tists what­so­ever. (Well, al­most no ne­ed of den­tists: The “sturdy mo­un­ta­ine­ers” of Swit­zer­land, who ne­ver met a to­othb­rush, had te­eth co­ve­red in a gre­enish sli­me-but un­der­ne­ath that Pri­ce fo­und per­fectly for­med te­eth vir­tu­al­ly free of de­cay.) Whe­re­ver he fo­und an iso­la­ted pri­mi­ti­ve ra­ce that had not yet en­co­un­te­red the “disp­la­cing fo­ods of mo­dern com­mer­ce”-by which he me­ant re­fi­ned flo­ur, su­gar, can­ned and che­mi­cal­ly pre­ser­ved fo­ods, and ve­ge­tab­le oils-he fo­und lit­tle or no evi­den­ce of “mo­dern de­ge­ne­ra­ti­on”-by which he me­ant chro­nic di­se­ase, to­oth de­cay, and mal­for­med den­tal arc­hes. Eit­her the­re was so­met­hing pre­sent in the Wes­tern di­et that led to the­se prob­lems or the­re was so­met­hing ab­sent from it.

  Whe­re­ver Pri­ce went he to­ok pic­tu­res of te­eth and col­lec­ted samp­les of fo­od, which he sent ho­me to Cle­ve­land to be analy­zed for mac­ro­nut­ri­ent and vi­ta­min con­tent. He fo­und that his na­ti­ve po­pu­la­ti­ons we­re eating a di­et subs­tan­ti­al­ly hig­her in vi­ta­mins A and D than that of mo­dern Ame­ri­cans-on ave­ra­ge ten ti­mes as much. This owed partly to the fact that, as was al­re­ady un­ders­to­od by the 1930s, the pro­ces­sing of fo­ods typi­cal­ly robs them of nut­ri­ents, vi­ta­mins es­pe­ci­al­ly. Sto­re fo­od is fo­od de­sig­ned to be sto­red and trans­por­ted over long dis­tan­ces, and the su­rest way to ma­ke fo­od mo­re stab­le and less vul­ne­rab­le to pests is to re­mo­ve the nut­ri­ents from it. In ge­ne­ral, ca­lo­ri­es are much easi­er to trans­port-in the form of re­fi­ned gra­in or su­gar-than nut­ri­ents, which are li­ab­le to de­te­ri­ora­te or at­tract the at­ten­ti­on of bac­te­ria, in­sects, and ro­dents, all ke­enly in­te­res­ted in nut­ri­ents. (Mo­re so, ap­pa­rently, than we are.) Pri­ce conc­lu­ded that mo­dern ci­vi­li­za­ti­on had sac­ri­fi­ced much of the qu­ality of its fo­od in the in­te­rests of qu­an­tity and shelf li­fe.

  Pri­ce iden­ti­fi­ed no sing­le ide­al di­et-he fo­und po­pu­la­ti­ons that thri­ved on se­afo­od di­ets, da­iry di­ets, me­at di­ets, and di­ets in which fru­its, ve­ge­tab­les, and gra­in pre­do­mi­na­ted. The Ma­sai of Af­ri­ca con­su­med vir­tu­al­ly no plant fo­ods at all, sub­sis­ting on me­at, blo­od, and milk. Se­afa­ring gro­ups in the Heb­ri­des con­su­med no da­iry at all, sub­sis­ting on a di­et con­sis­ting lar­gely of se­afo­od and oats ma­de in­to por­rid­ges and ca­kes. The Es­ki­mos he in­ter­vi­ewed li­ved on raw fish, ga­me me­at, fish roe, and blub­ber, sel­dom eating anyt­hing re­mo­tely gre­en. Along the Ni­le ne­ar Et­hi­opia, Pri­ce en­co­un­te­red what he jud­ged to be the he­alt­hi­est po­pu­la­ti­ons of all: tri­bes that sub­sis­ted on milk, me­at, and blo­od from pas­tu­red cat­tle as well as ani­mal fo­od from the Ni­le Ri­ver. Pri­ce fo­und gro­ups that ate di­ets of wild ani­mal flesh to be ge­ne­ral­ly he­alt­hi­er than the ag­ri­cul­tu­rists who re­li­ed on ce­re­als and ot­her plant fo­ods; the ag­ri­cul­tu­rists ten­ded to ha­ve so­mew­hat hig­her le­vels of to­oth de­cay (tho­ugh still low by our stan­dards). Pri­ce no­ted that many of the pe­op­les he vi­si­ted par­ti­cu­larly pri­zed or­gan me­ats, in which he fo­und high le­vels of fat-so­lub­le vi­ta­mins, mi­ne­rals, and “acti­va­tor X,” a term of his own in­ven­ti­on that is pro­bably vi­ta­min K2. Al­most everyw­he­re he went, he no­ted the high va­lue pe­op­le pla­ced on se­afo­od, which even mo­un­ta­in-dwel­ling gro­ups wo­uld go to gre­at lengths to pro­cu­re, tra­ding with co­as­tal tri­bes for dri­ed fish eggs and such. But the com­mon de­no­mi­na­tor of go­od he­alth, he conc­lu­ded, was to eat a tra­di­ti­onal di­et con­sis­ting of fresh fo­ods from ani­mals and plants grown on so­ils that we­re them­sel­ves rich in nut­ri­ents.

  Pri­ce pa­id spe­ci­al at­ten­ti­on to the qu­ality of ani­mal-ba­sed fo­ods and its link to what tho­se ani­mals ate. He com­pa­red the vi­ta­min con­tent of but­ter pro­du­ced from cows gra­zing on spring grass to that of ani­mals on win­ter fo­ra­ges; not only we­re le­vels of vi­ta­mins A and D much hig­her in the yel­lo­wer but­ter of the pas­tu­red ani­mals but the he­alth of the pe­op­le who sub­sis­ted on tho­se ani­mals was bet­ter too. Pri­ce be­li­eved the qu­ality of the so­il was a key to he­alth, and in 1932, he pub­lis­hed a pa­per tit­led “New Light on So­me Re­la­ti­ons­hips Bet­we­en So­il Mi­ne­ral De­fi­ci­en­ci­es, Low Vi­ta­min Fo­ods, and So­me De­ge­ne­ra­ti­ve Di­se­ases.”

  In ma­king such con­nec­ti­ons bet­we­en the qu­ality of so­il and grass and the he­alth of the hu­man eaters at the top of the fo­od cha­in, Pri­ce was ad­van­cing a cri­ti­que of the in­dust­ri­ali­zed ag­ri­cul­tu­re just get­ting es­tab­lis­hed in the thir­ti­es. In this he was not alo­ne: Aro­und the sa­me ti­me, the Eng­lish ag­ro­no­mist Sir Al­bert Ho­ward, the phi­lo­sop­hi­cal fat­her of the or­ga­nic far­ming mo­ve­ment, was al­so ar­gu­ing that the in­dust­ri­ali­za­ti­on of ag­ri­cul­tu­re-in par­ti­cu­lar the int­ro­duc­ti­on of synthe­tic nit­ro­gen fer­ti­li­zer, which simp­li­fi­ed the che­mistry of the so­il-wo­uld even­tu­al­ly ta­ke its toll on our he­alth. Ho­ward ur­ged that we re­gard “the who­le prob­lem of he­alth in so­il, plant, ani­mal and man as one gre­at su­bj­ect.” When Ho­ward wro­te the­se words, this was still lit­tle mo­re than a wor­king hypot­he­sis; Wes­ton Pri­ce had be­gun to put so­me em­pi­ri­cal fo­un­da­ti­ons be­ne­ath it.

  Pri­ce was inc­hing to­ward an eco­lo­gi­cal un­ders­tan­ding of di­et and he­alth that was well ahe­ad of his ti­me. He un­ders­to­od that, ul­ti­ma­tely, eating lin­ked us to the earth and its ele­ments as well as to the energy of the sun. “The din­ner we ha­ve eaten to­night,” he told his audi­en­ce in a 1928 lec­tu­re, “was a part of the sun but a few months ago.” In­dust­ri­al fo­od both obs­cu­red the­se links and at­te­nu­ated them. In lengt­he­ning the fo­od cha­in so that we co­uld fe­ed gre­at ci­ti­es from dis­tant so­ils, we we­re bre­aking the “ru­les of na­tu­re” at le­ast twi­ce: by rob­bing nut­ri­ents from the so­ils the fo­ods had be­en grown in and then squ­an­de­ring tho­se nut­ri­ents by pro­ces­sing the fo­ods. Com­pa­red to the na­ti­ve pe­op­les Pri­ce stu­di­ed, many of whom to­ok pa­ins to re­turn nut­ri­ents to the lo­cal so­il on which they ab­so­lu­tely de­pen­ded, “our mo­dern ci­vi­li­za­ti­on re­turns ex­ce­edingly lit­tle of what it bor­rows. Vast fle­ets are busy car­rying the li­mi­ted mi­ne­rals of far-flung dist­ricts to dis­tant mar­kets.” Ren­ner do­cu­ments how Pri­ce even­tu­al­ly ca­me to see the prob­lem of di­et and he­alth as a prob­lem of eco­lo­gi­cal dysfunc­ti­on. By bre­aking the links among lo­cal so­ils, lo­cal fo­ods, and lo­cal pe­op­les, the in­dust­ri­al fo­od system dis­rup­ted the cir­cu­lar flow of nut­ri­ents thro­ugh the fo­od cha­in. Wha­te­ver the ad­van­ta­ges of the new in­dust­ri­al system, it co­uld no lon­ger me­et the bi­oc­he­mi­cal re­qu­ire­ments of the hu­man body, which, not ha­ving had ti­me to adapt, was fa­iling in new ways.

  Whet­her or not you’re wil­ling to tra­vel qu­ite that far with Dr. Pri­ce, he and all the ot­her early twen­ti­eth-cen­tury exp­lo­rers of the pre-Wes­tern di­et re­tur­ned to ci­vi­li­za­ti­on with the sa­me simp­le and de­vas­ta­ting pi­ece of news, one that se­ems hard to deny: The hu­man ani­mal is adap­ted to, and ap­pa­rently can thri­ve on, an ext­ra­or­di­nary ran­ge of dif­fe­rent di­ets, but the Wes­tern di­et, ho­we­ver you de­fi­ne it, do­es not se­em to be one of them.

  As it hap­pe­ned, the eco­lo­gi­cal cri­ti­que of in­dust­ri­al ci­vi­li­za­ti­on tha
t Wes­ton Pri­ce was ad­van­cing in the thir­ti­es wo­uld not sur­vi­ve World War II. The spa­ce for such wri­ting-occu­pi­ed al­so by Sir Ho­ward and Lord North­bo­ur­ne in Eng­land and the Ame­ri­can ag­ra­ri­ans-clo­sed down very shortly af­ter Pri­ce pub­lis­hed Nut­ri­ti­on and Physi­cal De­ge­ne­ra­ti­on in 1939. Pe­op­le wo­uld so­on lo­se the­ir pa­ti­en­ce for at­tacks on “indust­ri­al ci­vi­li­za­ti­on,” that be­ing pre­ci­sely what they we­re de­pen­ding on to sa­ve them in war­ti­me. By the ti­me the war en­ded, that in­dust­ri­al ci­vi­li­za­ti­on had con­so­li­da­ted its hold and in the pro­cess be­co­me much mo­re su­re of it­self. In the ye­ars im­me­di­ately af­ter the war, in­dust­ri­al ag­ri­cul­tu­re (which be­ne­fi­ted from the pe­ace­ti­me con­ver­si­on of mu­ni­ti­ons to che­mi­cal fer­ti­li­zer and ner­ve gas re­se­arch to pes­ti­ci­des) al­so con­so­li­da­ted its po­si­ti­on; the­re wo­uld so­on be no ot­her kind. Wes­ton Pri­ce and his fel­low stu­dents of the Wes­tern di­se­ases we­re lar­gely for­got­ten. No one was much in­te­res­ted in lo­oking back or ce­leb­ra­ting the wis­dom of pri­mi­ti­ve gro­ups that we­re them­sel­ves qu­ickly di­sap­pe­aring or be­ing as­si­mi­la­ted; even the Abo­ri­gi­nes we­re mo­ving to the city.

  As for the Wes­tern di­se­ases, they hadn’t go­ne away-inde­ed, ra­tes of he­art di­se­ase exp­lo­ded im­me­di­ately af­ter the war-but now they be­ca­me the res­pon­si­bi­lity of mo­dern me­di­ci­ne and re­duc­ti­onist sci­en­ce. Nut­ri­ti­onism be­ca­me the ac­cep­ted set of terms in which to con­duct all con­ver­sa­ti­ons abo­ut di­et and he­alth. It wo­uldn’t be un­til the la­te 1960s, with the ri­se of or­ga­nic ag­ri­cul­tu­re, that se­arc­hing qu­es­ti­ons abo­ut the in­dust­ri­al fo­od cha­in wo­uld be po­sed aga­in.

  THREE - THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF EATING: WHAT WE DO KNOW

  I ’ve dwel­led on the all-but-for­got­ten ide­as of pe­op­le li­ke Wes­ton Pri­ce and Sir Al­bert Ho­ward-eco­lo­gi­cal thin­kers abo­ut the hu­man fo­od cha­in-be­ca­use they po­int us down a path that might le­ad the way out of the nar­row, and ul­ti­ma­tely un­help­ful, con­fi­nes of nut­ri­ti­onism: of thin­king abo­ut fo­od strictly in terms of its che­mi­cal cons­ti­tu­ents. What we ne­ed now, it se­ems to me, is to cre­ate a bro­ader, mo­re eco­lo­gi­cal-and mo­re cul­tu­ral-vi­ew of fo­od. So let us try.

  What wo­uld hap­pen if we we­re to start thin­king abo­ut fo­od as less of a thing and mo­re of a re­la­ti­ons­hip? In na­tu­re, that is of co­ur­se pre­ci­sely what eating has al­ways be­en: re­la­ti­ons­hips among spe­ci­es in systems we call fo­od cha­ins, or fo­od webs, that re­ach all the way down to the so­il. Spe­ci­es co­evol­ve with the ot­her spe­ci­es that they eat, and very of­ten the­re de­ve­lops a re­la­ti­ons­hip of in­ter­de­pen­den­ce: I’ll fe­ed you if you spre­ad aro­und my ge­nes. A gra­du­al pro­cess of mu­tu­al adap­ta­ti­on trans­forms so­met­hing li­ke an ap­ple or a squ­ash in­to a nut­ri­ti­o­us and tasty fo­od for an ani­mal. Over ti­me and thro­ugh tri­al and er­ror, the plant be­co­mes tas­ti­er (and of­ten mo­re cons­pi­cu­o­us) in or­der to gra­tify the ani­mal’s ne­eds and de­si­res, whi­le the ani­mal gra­du­al­ly ac­qu­ires wha­te­ver di­ges­ti­ve to­ols (enzymes, for examp­le) it ne­eds to ma­ke op­ti­mal use of the plant.

  Si­mi­larly, the milk of cows did not start out as a nut­ri­ti­o­us fo­od for hu­mans; in fact, it ma­de them sick un­til pe­op­le who li­ved aro­und cows evol­ved the abi­lity to di­gest milk as adults. The ge­ne for the pro­duc­ti­on of a milk-di­ges­ting enzy­me cal­led lac­ta­se used to switch off in hu­mans shortly af­ter we­aning un­til abo­ut fi­ve tho­usand ye­ars ago, when a mu­ta­ti­on that kept the ge­ne switc­hed on ap­pe­ared and qu­ickly spre­ad thro­ugh a po­pu­la­ti­on of ani­mal her­ders in north-cent­ral Euro­pe. Why? Be­ca­use the pe­op­le pos­ses­sing the new mu­ta­ti­on then had ac­cess to a ter­ri­fi­cal­ly nut­ri­ti­o­us new fo­od so­ur­ce and as a con­se­qu­en­ce we­re ab­le to pro­du­ce mo­re offsp­ring than the pe­op­le who lac­ked it. This de­ve­lop­ment pro­ved much to the ad­van­ta­ge of both the milk drin­kers and the cows, who­se num­bers and ha­bi­tat (and he­alth) gre­atly imp­ro­ved as a re­sult of this new symbi­otic re­la­ti­ons­hip.

  He­alth is, among ot­her things, the pro­duct of be­ing in the­se sorts of re­la­ti­ons­hips in a fo­od cha­in-a gre­at many such re­la­ti­ons­hips in the ca­se of an om­ni­vo­ro­us cre­atu­re li­ke man. It fol­lows that when the he­alth of one part of the fo­od cha­in is dis­tur­bed, it can af­fect all the ot­her cre­atu­res in it. If the so­il is sick or in so­me way de­fi­ci­ent, so will be the gras­ses that grow in that so­il and the cat­tle that eat the gras­ses and the pe­op­le who drink the milk from them. This is pre­ci­sely what Wes­ton Pri­ce and Sir Ho­ward had in mind when they so­ught to con­nect the se­emingly dis­tant re­alms of so­il and hu­man he­alth. Our per­so­nal he­alth can­not be di­vor­ced from the he­alth of the en­ti­re fo­od web.

  In many ca­ses, long fa­mi­li­arity bet­we­en fo­ods and the­ir eaters le­ads to ela­bo­ra­te systems of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on up and down the fo­od cha­in so that a cre­atu­re’s sen­ses co­me to re­cog­ni­ze fo­ods as su­itab­le by the­ir tas­te and smell and co­lor. Very of­ten the­se sig­nals are “sent” by the fo­ods them­sel­ves, which may ha­ve the­ir own re­asons for wan­ting to be eaten. Ri­pe­ness in fru­it is of­ten sig­na­led by a dis­tinc­ti­ve smell (an ap­pe­aling scent that can tra­vel over dis­tan­ces), or co­lor (one that stands out from the ge­ne­ral gre­en), or tas­te (typi­cal­ly swe­et). Ri­pe­ness, which is the mo­ment when the se­eds of the plant are re­ady to go off and ger­mi­na­te, typi­cal­ly co­in­ci­des with the gre­atest con­cent­ra­ti­on of nut­ri­ents in a fru­it, so the in­te­rests of the plant (for trans­por­ta­ti­on) align with tho­se of the plant eater (for nut­ri­ment). Our bo­di­es, ha­ving re­ce­ived the­se sig­nals and de­ter­mi­ned this fru­it is go­od to eat, now pro­du­ce in an­ti­ci­pa­ti­on pre­ci­sely the enzy­mes and acids ne­eded to bre­ak it down. He­alth de­pends he­avily on kno­wing how to re­ad the­se bi­olo­gi­cal sig­nals: This lo­oks ri­pe; this smells spo­iled; that’s one slick-lo­oking cow. This is much easi­er to do when you ha­ve long ex­pe­ri­en­ce of a fo­od and much har­der when a fo­od has be­en exp­res­sly de­sig­ned to de­ce­ive yo­ur sen­ses with, say, ar­ti­fi­ci­al fla­vors or synthe­tic swe­ete­ners. Fo­ods that lie to our sen­ses are one of the most chal­len­ging fe­atu­res of the Wes­tern di­et.

  No­te that the­se eco­lo­gi­cal re­la­ti­ons­hips are, at le­ast in the first ins­tan­ce, bet­we­en eaters and who­le fo­ods, not nut­ri­ents or che­mi­cals. Even tho­ugh the fo­ods in qu­es­ti­on even­tu­al­ly get bro­ken down in our bo­di­es in­to simp­le che­mi­cal com­po­unds, as corn is re­du­ced mostly to simp­le su­gars, the qu­ali­ti­es of the who­le fo­ods are not unim­por­tant. The amo­unt and struc­tu­re of the fi­ber in that corn, for examp­le, will de­ter­mi­ne such things as the spe­ed at which the su­gars in it will be re­le­ased and ab­sor­bed, so­met­hing we’ve le­ar­ned is cri­ti­cal to in­su­lin me­ta­bo­lism. The che­mist will tell you the starch in corn is on its way to be­co­ming glu­co­se in the blo­od, but that re­duc­ti­ve un­ders­tan­ding over­lo­oks the comp­lex and va­ri­ab­le pro­cess by which that hap­pens. Cont­rary to the nut­ri­ti­on la­bel, not all car­bohyd­ra­tes are cre­ated equ­al.

  Put anot­her way, our bo­di­es ha­ve a long-stan­ding and sus­ta­inab­le re­la­ti­ons­hip to corn that they do not ha­ve to high-fruc­to­se corn syrup. Such a re­la­ti­ons­hip with corn syrup might de­ve­lop so­me­day (as pe­op­le evol­ve su­per­hu­man in­su­lin systems to co­pe with re­gu�
�lar flo­ods of pu­re fruc­to­se and glu­co­se*), but for now the re­la­ti­ons­hip le­ads to ill he­alth be­ca­use our bo­di­es don’t know how to hand­le the­se bi­olo­gi­cal no­vel­ti­es. In much the sa­me way, hu­man bo­di­es that can co­pe with che­wing co­ca le­aves-a longs­tan­ding re­la­ti­ons­hip bet­we­en na­ti­ve pe­op­le and the co­ca plant in parts of So­uth Ame­ri­ca-can­not co­pe with co­ca­ine or crack, even tho­ugh the sa­me ac­ti­ve ing­re­di­ents are pre­sent in all three. Re­duc­ti­onism as a way of un­ders­tan­ding fo­od or drugs may be harm­less, even ne­ces­sary, but re­duc­ti­onism in prac­ti­ce-re­du­cing fo­od or drug plants to the­ir most sa­li­ent che­mi­cal com­po­unds-can le­ad to prob­lems.

  Lo­oking at eating, and fo­od, thro­ugh this eco­lo­gi­cal lens opens a who­le new pers­pec­ti­ve on exactly what the Wes­tern di­et is: a ra­di­cal and, at le­ast in evo­lu­ti­onary terms, ab­rupt set of chan­ges over the co­ur­se of the last 150 ye­ars, not just to our fo­ods­tuf­fs but al­so to our fo­od re­la­ti­ons­hips, all the way from the so­il to the me­al. The ri­se of the ide­ology of nut­ri­ti­onism is it­self part of that chan­ge. When we think of a spe­ci­es’ “envi­ron­ment,” we usu­al­ly think in terms of things li­ke ge­og­raphy, pre­da­tors and prey, and the we­at­her. But of co­ur­se one of the most cri­ti­cal com­po­nents of any cre­atu­re’s en­vi­ron­ment is the na­tu­re of the fo­od ava­ilab­le to it and its re­la­ti­ons­hips to the spe­ci­es it eats. Much is at sta­ke when a cre­atu­re’s fo­od en­vi­ron­ment chan­ges. For us, the first big chan­ge ca­me ten tho­usand ye­ars ago with the ad­vent of ag­ri­cul­tu­re. (And it de­vas­ta­ted our he­alth, le­ading to a pa­noply of de­fi­ci­en­ci­es and in­fec­ti­o­us di­se­ases that we’ve only ma­na­ged to get un­der cont­rol in the last cen­tury or so.) The big­gest chan­ge in our fo­od en­vi­ron­ment sin­ce then? The ad­vent of the mo­dern di­et.

 

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