In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

by Michael Pollan

Indeed, no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we Americans do—and no people suffer from as many diet-related health problems. We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.*

But if you stop to think about it, it is odd that everyone should need a dentist and that so many of us should need braces, root canals, extractions of wisdom teeth, and all the other routine procedures of modern mouth maintenance.

Studying cultured human cells, he’s found that “deficiency of vitamins C, E, B 12, B 6, niacin, folic acid, iron or zinc appears to mimic radiation by causing single-and double-strand DNA breaks, oxidative lesions, or both”—precursors to cancer.

Merely adding omega-3s to the diet—by taking supplements, say—may not do much good unless we also reduce the high levels of omega-6s that have entered the Western diet with the advent of processed foods, seed oils, and foods from animals raised on grain.

Of all the changes to our food system that go under the heading “The Western Diet,” the shift from a food chain with green plants at its base to one based on seeds may be the most far reaching of all.

Nutritionism, which arose to help us better deal with the problems of the Western diet, has largely been co-opted by it: used by the industry to sell more nutritionally “enhanced” processed food and to undermine further the authority of traditional food cultures that stand in the way of fast food.

An American born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of developing diabetes in his lifetime; the risk is even greater for a Hispanic American or African American.

No doubt we can look forward to a qualified health claim for high-fructose corn syrup, a tablespoon of which probably does contribute to your health—as long as it replaces a comparable amount of, say, poison in your diet and doesn’t increase the total number of calories you eat in a day.

The American Heart Association currently bestows (for a fee) its heart-healthy seal of approval on Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, and Trix cereals, Yoo-hoo lite chocolate drink, and Healthy Choice’s Premium Caramel Swirl Ice Cream Sandwich—this at a time when scientists are coming to recognize that dietary sugar probably plays a more important role in heart disease than dietary fat.

And while it’s true that the organic label guarantees that no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers have been used to produce the food, many, if not most, of the small farms that supply farmers’ markets are organic in everything but name.

In countries where people eat a pound or more of fruits and vegetables a day, the rate of cancer is half what it is in the United States.

Put simply: Overeating promotes cell division, and promotes it most dramatically in cancer cells; cutting back on calories slows cell division.

How often would you eat french fries if you had to peel, wash, cut and fry them yourself—and then clean up the mess?