Since the publication of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), food journalist Michael Pollan has made the point that nutrition is religion—because it requires believing without seeing. After all, nutrition must be all about what’s in the food. With the discovery of the first vitamin (B1, or thiamine) in 1912, scientists became convinced that there were chemicals in food that conferred health, so there must also be chemicals in food that conferred illness. This in turn has led to the concept of nutrients as being the lowest common denominator for any eating paradigm, giving rise to the religion of
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