it was entirely possible that the nation would have chosen simply to ignore the Dietary Goals and go on eating as it had. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the goals were taken seriously, and one of the more ambitious nutritional experiments in our history got under way. Authority over the national menu, which in the past had rested largely with tradition and habit (and mom), shifted perceptibly in January 1977: Culture ceded a large measure of its influence over how we ate and thought about eating to science. Or what passes for science in dietary matters; nutritionism would be a more
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