Nutritional Research and Public Health
Unhappy Meals
In a New York Times Magazine essay entitled "Unhappy Meals," Michael Pollan argues that food has become unnecessarily complicated by science and that, in some very significant ways, food science has proven to be detrimental to public health. Rather than overanalyzing nutrient and caloric intake, he suggests that what humans should eat is very intuitive and simple: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He argues that "nutritionism" is an ideology rather than a science and that the research behind faddy foods and supplements is often weak, presently contradictory or subject to future contradictions. In fact, he points out that nutritional research is more beneficial for packaged food producers than consumers, writing that the food industry can quickly re-engineer and re-package processed foods to woo consumers who have already been swayed by the free advertising provided by emerging research. All the while, "real foods" such as fruits and vegetables cannot reinvent and remarket themselves and are left behind.
Furthermore, Pollan suggests that there is a fundamental flaw in nutritional science because it isolates and studies one nutrient at a time. This decontextualizes the nutrient of interest, leading to perhaps misleading results because "people don't eat nutrients, they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently than the nutrients they contain." He notes that any one food a person consumes has a long list of chemical compounds that may work synergistically or individually in unknown ways and that it is futile to try to understand all of these complexities. But the good news is that "you don't need to fathom a carrot's complexity to reap its benefits."
While I do not believe that eating is so hopelessly complicated that it is beyond scientific understanding or that nutritional research does not have public health benefits, I do think that the food industry and people in general become too easily enamored with the latest findings, which generally require much more study to have any applicable value. Moreover, I think that health claims about specific ingredients in a product delude people into thinking a product as a whole is healthy (whole wheat cocoa puffs) and acceptable if eaten in large amounts. Also, just because one thing is proven to be bad for you, does not necessarily mean the alternative is any better (trans fats and interesterified fats).
In a New York Times Magazine essay entitled "Unhappy Meals," Michael Pollan argues that food has become unnecessarily complicated by science and that, in some very significant ways, food science has proven to be detrimental to public health. Rather than overanalyzing nutrient and caloric intake, he suggests that what humans should eat is very intuitive and simple: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He argues that "nutritionism" is an ideology rather than a science and that the research behind faddy foods and supplements is often weak, presently contradictory or subject to future contradictions. In fact, he points out that nutritional research is more beneficial for packaged food producers than consumers, writing that the food industry can quickly re-engineer and re-package processed foods to woo consumers who have already been swayed by the free advertising provided by emerging research. All the while, "real foods" such as fruits and vegetables cannot reinvent and remarket themselves and are left behind.
Furthermore, Pollan suggests that there is a fundamental flaw in nutritional science because it isolates and studies one nutrient at a time. This decontextualizes the nutrient of interest, leading to perhaps misleading results because "people don't eat nutrients, they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently than the nutrients they contain." He notes that any one food a person consumes has a long list of chemical compounds that may work synergistically or individually in unknown ways and that it is futile to try to understand all of these complexities. But the good news is that "you don't need to fathom a carrot's complexity to reap its benefits."
While I do not believe that eating is so hopelessly complicated that it is beyond scientific understanding or that nutritional research does not have public health benefits, I do think that the food industry and people in general become too easily enamored with the latest findings, which generally require much more study to have any applicable value. Moreover, I think that health claims about specific ingredients in a product delude people into thinking a product as a whole is healthy (whole wheat cocoa puffs) and acceptable if eaten in large amounts. Also, just because one thing is proven to be bad for you, does not necessarily mean the alternative is any better (trans fats and interesterified fats).
posted by Mei Zhan at 3:46 PM
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