The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well

by Mark Schatzker

We are so certain that food itself is to blame that for nearly a hundred years we have been attempting to fix what nature has gotten so badly wrong. The result is that, molecule by molecule and additive by additive, food has become a strange imitation of itself. The harder we fight to correct the defects of nature, the worse things get.

In 2017, America ate more fat replacers than any other country in the world. In 2022, the United States will consume nearly $500 million in fat replacers, and the global appetite for these brain-fooling products is set to exceed $2 billion. That is quite a lot of fake fat, considering it can cost all of ten cents to replace the fat in a serving of yogurt. If you are wondering why you have never heard of fake fats, the answer is that the industry prefers it that way. When I contacted one of the leading researchers in the field, a scientist who works at a publicly funded university and whose name is attached to scores of publications, he informed me that he refuses to speak to journalists as a matter of principle.

So why not go whole hog? Ban everything in the food system that is unhealthy. Make all those additives that require a graduate degree in food science to pronounce illegal. Pass a bill that decrees that henceforth ice cream shall actually be ice cream. Force the food companies to sell authentic food and not some engineered facsimile. And can we rethink the now-ancient practice of enriching processed carbs? It has been nearly a century since pellagra was wiped out. Are we still running dangerously low on niacin, riboflavin, and thiamin?I Some countries—wealthy, advanced, science-forward nations that include Denmark, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, Spain, and Sweden (and Italy, obviously)—do not fortify their flour with vitamins. Amazingly, they do not face epidemics of pellagra every spring. They do, however, have lower rates of adult and child obesity.

So do it. Purge the food environment of the ingredients and additives that are setting our brains astray. If we can force companies to put airbags in cars and make people wear seat belts and pay taxes, mow their lawns and obey traffic lights, is improving the quality of food we put inside our bodies such a ridiculous thought?