The work of growing food contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it, of course, but there is something particularly fitting about enlisting your body in its own sustenance. Much of what we call recreation or exercise consists of pointless physical labor, so it is especially satisfying when we can give that labor a point. But gardening consists of mental work as well: learning about the different varieties; figuring out which do best under the conditions of your garden; acquainting yourself with the various microclimates-the subtle differences in light, moisture, and soil quality across even the tiniest patch of earth; and devising ways to outwit pests without resorting to chemicals. None of this work is terribly difficult; much of it is endlessly gratifying, and never more so than in the hour immediately before dinner, when I take a knife and a basket out to the garden to harvest whatever has declared itself ripest and tastiest.
Among other things, tending a garden reminds us of our ancient evolutionary bargain with these ingenious domestic species-how cleverly they insinuate themselves into our lives, repaying the care and space we give them with the gift of good food. Each has its own way of announcing-through a change of color, shape, smell, texture, or taste-that the moment when it has the very most to offer us, when it is at its sweetest and most nourishing, has arrived: Pick me!
Not that everything in the garden always works out so well; it doesn’t, but there is a value in the inevitable failures too. Whenever your produce is anything less than gorgeous and delicious, gardening cultivates in you a deep respect for the skill of the farmer who knows how consistently to get it right.
When the basket of produce lands on the kitchen counter, when we start in on the cleaning and cutting and chopping, we’re thinking about a dozen different things-what to make, how to make it-but nutrition, or even health, is probably not high on the list. Look at this food. There are no ingredients labels, no health claims, nothing to read except maybe a recipe. It’s hard when contemplating such produce to think in terms of nutrients or chemical compounds; no, this is food, so fresh it’s still alive, communicating with us by scent and color and taste. The good cook takes in all this sensory information and only then decides what to do with the basket of possibilities on the counter: what to combine it with; how, and how much, to “process” it. Now the culture of the kitchen takes over. That culture is embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, any one of which contains more wisdom about diet and health than you will find in any nutrition journal or journalism. The cook does not need to know, as the scientists have recently informed us, that cooking the tomatoes with olive oil makes the lycopene in them more available to our bodies. No, the cook already knew that olive oil with tomatoes is a really good idea.
As cook in your kitchen you enjoy an omniscience about your food that no amount of supermarket study or label reading could hope to match. Having retaken control of the meal from the food scientists and processors, you know exactly what is and is not in it: There are no questions about high-fructose corn syrup, or ethoxylated diglycerides, or partially hydrogenated soy oil, for the simple reason that you didn’t ethoxylate or partially hydrogenate anything, nor did you add any additives. (Unless, that is, you’re the kind of cook who starts with a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, in which case all bets are off.) To reclaim this much control over one’s food, to take it back from industry and science, is no small thing; indeed, in our time cooking from scratch and growing any of your own food qualify as subversive acts.
And what these acts subvert is nutritionism: the belief that food is foremost about nutrition and nutrition is so complex that only experts and industry can possibly supply it. When you’re cooking with food as alive as this-these gorgeous and semigorgeous fruits and leaves and flesh-you’re in no danger of mistaking it for a commodity, or a fuel, or a collection of chemical nutrients. No, in the eye of the cook or the gardener or the farmer who grew it, this food reveals itself for what it is: no mere thing but a web of relationships among a great many living beings, some of them human, some not, but each of them dependent on the other, and all of them ultimately rooted in soil and nourished by sunlight. I’m thinking of the relationship between the plants and the soil, between the grower and the plants and animals he or she tends, between the cook and the growers who supply the ingredients, and between the cook and the people who will soon come to the table to enjoy the meal. It is a large community to nourish and be nourished by. The cook in the kitchen preparing a meal from plants and animals at the end of this shortest of food chains has a great many things to worry about, but “health” is simply not one of them, because it is given.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ve dedicated In Defense of Food to two editors, Ann Godoff and Gerry Marzorati, because the book would not exist without them. It began with an assignment from Gerry, who, over lunch one afternoon at a restaurant in Oakland, proposed that I learn all that I could about diet and health and then write an essay about it. When that essay was published in The New York Times Magazine a year ago, under the title “Unhappy Meals,” Ann Godoff, my longtime book editor, telephoned to suggest the piece might hold the germ of a book-this book. I mention all this because I suspect many readers assume books spring full blown from the heads of writers, when in fact many of them spring, half baked, from the heads of brilliant editors. I’m unusually fortunate to have two of the very best ones deciding how I should spend my time. I’m doubly fortunate that Ann and Gerry also happen to be two of my dearest friends. Heartfelt thanks to both of you.
Ann and Gerry weren’t the only editors who had a hand in this book, though the others don’t wear the title or receive compensation for their labors (beyond this paragraph). As with every one of my books, Judith Belzer read the manuscript more times than anyone should have to and improved it in countless ways. I can no longer even imagine what it would be like to write a book without her as my first reader, and you can have no idea just how many lame sentences and lousy ideas she has kept out of print. As in the past, Mark Edmundson and Michael Schwarz also read the book in manuscript and made priceless suggestions; I couldn’t have more supportive or stimulating colleagues. Thanks too to Jack Hitt, who’s read all my books in galleys and helped me to figure out what I’ve written-not always so obvious. Christopher Gardner, a nutrition scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine, reviewed the manuscript for scientific accuracy and rescued me from numerous errors of fact and interpretation; of course any that remain are mine alone. His own pioneering research in dietary patterns was also very helpful in developing my r
ecommendations in part three.
I owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to Adrienne Davich, a gifted journalist (and former student) who did a splendid and heroic job of researching the book and fact-checking the manuscript. Adrienne immersed herself in the medical literature, scoured the Berkeley library and databases for information, and worked the phone confirming facts right up to press time. I don’t exaggerate when I say this book might still not be finished if not for her zeal, intelligence, scrupulousness, judgment, and unfailing good humor in the face of a daunting deadline. I also want to thank my assistant Jaime Gross, for her indispensable help and constant good cheer, as well as my past and present students at the Graduate School of Journalism, who contribute more to my work than they probably realize.
This book is in many ways a work of synthesis, built on a foundation of research and thinking laid by others. In educating myself on the subject of food, health, and agriculture over the past several years, I’ve been fortunate to have four of the wisest and most generous teachers: Joan Gussow, Marion Nestle, Alice Waters, and Wendell Berry-you are abiding inspirations. For their insights and information in conversations and e-mail exchanges, I’m also pleased to be able to acknowledge and thank: Susan Allport, Gyorgy Scrinis (coiner of the term nutritionism), Walter Willett, Joseph Hibbeln, Gladys Block, Geoffrey Cannon, Andrew Weil, Gary Nabhan, Bill Lands, David Ludwig, Jim Kaput, Alyson Mitchell, Brian Halweil, Bruce Ames, Martin Renner, and Kerin O’Dea. I hope I’ve done justice to your work. Much of what I know about agriculture and food systems I learned from Joel Salatin and George Naylor; and about eating well from Carlo Petrini, Angelo Garro, Dan Barber, everyone at Chez Panisse, and of course my mother, Corky Pollan. The growers in my own local food chain have also contributed much to my thinking about food and health: Thanks to Judith Redmond and everyone else at Full Belly Farm (my CSA), David Evans at Marin Sun Farms, and all the farmers at the Thursday farmers’ market in Berkeley.
Alex Star, my story editor at The New York Times Magazine, helped to focus my thinking in a series of conversations; his gentle but persistent prodding kept the project on track, and his incisive questions helped sharpen my arguments. I’m also grateful to the hundreds of readers who e-mailed me after the publication of both The Omnivore’s Dilemma and “Unhappy Meals,” offering invaluable criticisms, leads, reading suggestions, and provocations; this book is much better for your contributions.
At The Penguin Press, I get to work with not only the most talented but also the nicest people in book publishing: Tracy Locke, Sarah Hutson, Liza Darnton, Lindsay Whalen, Maggie Sivon, and Jacqueline Fischetti. Publishing a book is seldom thought of as a pleasant process, but at Penguin these days it actually almost is. I count on Amanda Urban, my literary agent for the past twenty years, for sage and completely unvarnished advice, and once again she delivered the goods. Binky is almost never wrong about anything. Though I would like to take this opportunity to remind her that, when I left New England for laid-back California, she predicted I would never complete another book. Here’s number two.
I owe a debt to three very special institutions for making that possible and supporting the writing of this book: the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, where I’ve taught since 2003 (thank you, Orville Schell and colleagues); the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has supported my research since I came to Berkeley (thank you, Eric Newton); and Mesa Refuge, for lending me the cabin overlooking To-males Bay where I wrote the first pages of this book under nearly ideal circumstances (thank you, Peter Barnes).
Finally to Isaac, kitchen collaborator, supertaster, fast friend of the carbohydrate, thank you for all the wonderful ideas and suggestions, even for coining the word “cornography” to describe your father’s work. The prize of you and your mother’s company at the dinner table at the end of the day is what makes the writing possible.
SOURCES
Listed below, by section, are the principal works referred to in the text as well as others that supplied me with facts or contributed to my thinking. Web site URLs are current as of September 2007. All cited articles by me are available at www.michaelpollan.com.
INTRODUCTION: AN EATER’S MANIFESTO
Glassner, Barry. The Gospel of Food (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007).
Kantrowitz, Barbara, and Claudia Kalb. “Food News Blues.” Newsweek (March 13, 2006).
Kass, Leon. The Hungry Soul (New York: The Free Press, 1994).
Mozaffarian, Dariush, and Eric B. Rimm. “Fish Intake, Contaminants, and Human Health: Evaluating the Risks and the Benefits.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 296.15 (2006):1885-99.
Nesheim, Malden C., et al. “Seafood Choices: Balancing Benefits and Risks” (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2006).
Nestle, Marion. Food Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006).
--. “Our National Eating Disorder.” New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004.
Prentice, Ross L. “Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Invasive Breast Cancer: The Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 295.6 (2006): 629-42.
Roberts, Paul. “The New Food Anxiety.” Psychology Today (March/April, 1998).
Rozin, Paul. “The Selection of Foods by Rats, Humans, and Other Animals” in Advances in the Study of Behavior, Vol. 6. Edited by J. Rosenblatt, R. A. Hilde, C. Beer, and E. Shaw (New York: Academic Press, 1976), pp. 21-76. The phrase “the omnivore’s dilemma” is usually credited to Rozin, who studies the psychology of food choices.
Scrinis, Gyorgy. “Sorry Marge.” Meanjin. 61.4 (2002): 108-16. Scrinis coined the term “nutritionism” in this illuminating article.
Temple, Norman J., and Denis P. Burkitt. Western Diseases (New Jersey: Humana Press Inc., 1994).
Trivedi, Bijal. “The Good, the Fad, and the Unhealthy.” New Scientist (September 23, 2006).
PART ONE: THE AGE OF NUTRITIONISM
On the history of nutrition science and the evolution of dietary advice:
Brock, William H. Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Cambridge World History of Food, The: Volume One, edited by Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Ibid.: Volume Two, edited by Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 2000).
Cannon, Geoffrey. The Fate of Nations: Food and Nutrition Policy in the New World. The Caroline Walker Lecture 2003, given at the Royal Society (London: Caroline Walker Trust, 2003). Can be obtained online at www.cwt.org.uk.
--. “Nutrition: The New World Map.” Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 11 (2002): S480-S97.
“Effect of Vitamin E and Beta Carotene on the Incidence of Lung Cancer and Other Cancers in Male Smokers, The. The Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta Carotene Cancer Prevention Study Group.” New England Journal of Medicine. 330.15 (1994): 1029-35.
Freudenheim, Jo L. “Study Design and Hypothesis Testing: Issues in the Evaluation of Evidence from Research in Nutritional Epidemiology.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 69 (1999): 1315S-21S.
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