FOOD. SCIENCE VS YOUR GRANDMA
Folate Enriched. Vitamin Fortified. A Great Start to the Day.
These are the promises made to our bodies by the market. These are promises – apparently based in science – that fail to deliver.
Michael Pollan. Photograph by Jenelle Schneider, Canwest News Service.
Recently in Australia on a short speaking tour, US journalist, author and educator Michael Pollan has been asking questions of this cereal-box guarantee.
If nutrition is such a big deal, why, he wants to know, then why are we suffering overweight, chronic disease and malnutrition in greater numbers than ever before?
Pollan’s answer and passionate defence of food can be crudely translated as: “When it comes to food, don’t listen to science, listen to your grandma”.
Listen to your grandma and stop speaking like a dodgy food scientist.
I’ve certainly done the dodgy talk. Failure in high-school chemistry notwithstanding, Professor Razer has felt entirely confident in giving up gluten BECAUSE OF SCIENCE. Exactly what science, I’ve never been sure. But it must be some science.
Gluten, after all, is touted as evil on so many scientific-looking food packets.
“Nutrition science is where surgery was in about 1650; you know, really interesting and promising, but you wouldn’t want to have them operate on you yet,” says Pollan.
Speaking in Australian capital cities this week, Pollan startled many when he described the tentative nature of nutrition science. The supermarket and our conversation within it, says Pollan, might feel like it’s grounded in science.
In fact, its basis is in what he calls “nutritionism”.
Short on verified research and long on shaky promises, “nutritionism”, says Pollan, is what happens when we all begin to read, and believe, the cereal-box.
This new religion is driven by marketing and bolstered by our very human need to believe in salvation. Nutritionism is the widespread faith that the chief function of food is to offer nutrition.
In one reading, this last statement appears to be perfectly reasonable: the chief function of food is to offer nutrition. And, in a purely biological sense, of course this is the case. Pollan’s concern, however, and the central theme of his highly regarded 2008 book In Defence of Food, is that the idea of food as nothing more than a sum of nutrients has led to a sort of communal eating disorder.
Eating has become less of a pleasure or a communal activity and more of a chore in decoding food science fads. And this can be exhausting.
In my own lifetime, I’ve seen cholesterol, fat and gluten all take turns as the gastronomic bad-guy and heroes like antioxidants and bloody fish oil – which apparently can cure everything save for fishy breath – emerge to conquer the plate.
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23 Responses to this article
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Helen Razer July 11, 2012
That’s the odd thing, Margi. When we look at the food principles of our grandmothers, they seem like radical anti-GM activists today!
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Julie July 11, 2012
As a grandmother – it’s about time we were finally recognised as the anti-GM activists we were, and are! If grandmothers, and particularly great-grandmothers were acknowledged as the wise women most of them are, and consulted as parenting and nutrition, and exercise (go outside and play until it’s dark) ‘experts’ rather than the ‘mommy bloggers’, we may have a chance at sensible living and survival.
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Helen Razer July 11, 2012
Haha, Julie! Not only are grandmothers vehemently G-Mod and pro aerobic activity, you lot are also the world’s greatest up-cyclers. My dear Nan re-used everything and thought our attitude to consumption was a crime.
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Roni Jean July 11, 2012
My dear old Mum used to say to me, “You know, originally, we all grew and foraged for our own food. It’s what we were designed to do.” Sure, we still die from disease, and cars have replaced dinosaurs as our biggest cause of death, but we’ve always been told, “natural and fresh is best”. What I don’t get is someone handing me a manufactured pill and telling me it’s ‘all natural’. Natural, as opposed to what?
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anna July 11, 2012
my Nonna had a glass of home made wine every day with her lunch and dinner..grew all her veges, only ate small amounts of meat and worked in the garden every day,until at 92 , the flu took her.
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Luke July 11, 2012
Good article Helen. I attended sunday night’s seminar in Melbourne and really enjoyed MP’s pragmatic approach. The constant barrage of marketing to which we are exposed has changed all of our senses of what is normal and natural. We seem to have outsmarted ourselves with nutrition but I think we’re slowing starting to understand that.
I think MP’s teachings must be a little bitter sweet for him. After all those thousands of hours he has spend reading the research and speaking to the “experts”, his findings can be best summed up in 7 words that his grandmother could’ve coined.
Here’s my take on Sunday. http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=24f0b16fbb70caf97def22dbd&id=81edbbcd20
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Helen Razer July 11, 2012
Hey Luke: agreed. It’s certainly a turn-abut from The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan can certainly argue biodiversity, GM, non feedlot beef etc etc with the best. In the end, though, he’s decided to cut through all the marketing and abandon all the science and say: look! Just use your noggin! I like the fact that he’s a practical activist.
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Wendy July 11, 2012
Woohoo, back to basics , why did we change what our Grandmas taught us ?? I have been working towards using the same principles as my Nan, i grow my own vegies, have chooks for my eggs, have fruit and nut trees from which I make my own jam,I actually don’t eat it myself , but give it away. We hardly buy groceries anymore, its a great way to live. Now just got to stop the pesky caterpillars from eating my crops !!
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Tori July 11, 2012
We try to eat as much “live” food as possible, and as uncorrupted as possible. Difficult sometimes since we live in a rural area without access to whole food stores, but we basically shop the outside aisles at the store, avoid white food products, stick to mostly lean meats, vegetables, and fruit, and save sweets for only special occasions. I’ve had to learn a whole new way of cooking (bye-bye breaded, fried foods) and had to pretty much give up eating out. I only wish it had resulted in any weight loss, but after 6 months I still weigh the same.
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Alex July 11, 2012
It’s not just the food aisles that are full of useless crap. All those other products that you pick up at the supermarket, the cleaning products specific to this and that, the mould removers, the air fresheners and the like that your grandmother would never have known existed. You can ditch those too – they’re all marketing. It’s your cleaning that makes things clean not the product you use.
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Helen Razer July 11, 2012
Jenny! What must I do for an invitation to your joint for dinner?
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Tracey July 11, 2012
Brilliant! About time somebody spoke common sense about what we put in our mouths. Thanks for this, Helen. x
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Astrid July 11, 2012
I’m stuffed then
My Nanna was all about cups of tea and bex powder. Don’t recall anything about food and her other than hot porridge in the middle of a Qld summer. -
Helen Razer July 11, 2012
LOL, Astrid. Between us, it’s a generalist rule made to help demystify the rather unhelpful barrage of information we endure about food. Honestly,if I was to eat like my paternal Grandma – bless her – it’d be nothing but communion wafers and antidepressants.
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Loz July 11, 2012
My grandmothers were of a generation and culture that spent hours cooking that evening’s dinner. Simple and humble dishes though they were, such as lentils, beans and casseroles. Nonetheless I like to cook some of the dishes I have learnt from my mum. As I’ve taken up fitness in midlife, I’ve become a lot more conscious about the nutritional value of foods and your article does raise a lot of things I’ve suspected for some time.
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Audrey July 12, 2012
I like the idea on the whole, but it does rely on having a sensible grandmother. My hubby’s ex-in-laws tout grandmother-style food wisdom to my step kids like “don’t eat porridge too often because it’ll block you up” which, thankfully, food science totally debunks.
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Neel July 12, 2012
Audrey I had a class of 3rd graders last month, none of whom had ever heard of porridge. We were graphing fave cereals for maths and Milo came out of top.
About grandmas, sadly the older generation is no longer revered for their wisdom but rather seen as out of touch. What a great loss to a country. With the best of this generation passing will go housekeeping and cooking skills, parenting and discipline strategies, community service with our reward ideals, storytelling without technology, the ability to hold face to face conversation, good work ethic, commitment to anything and plain good common sense! -
Helen Razer July 12, 2012
Hey guys. Perhaps I over-emphasised the “Grandma” a little; particularly as there seems to be such an oversupply of hard-drinkin’, burger scoffing grandmothers in your families
The point is: we HAVE the food knowledge. We really do. We KNOW we should be eating plants. We KNOW sugar is a “sometimes food” and we know that meat is to be consumed in moderation. In our guts, I believe, we know most absolutely that margarine, “diet” “yoghurt” or “health bars” have no place inside us. It’s time for us to stop being sucked in by the promise of the food science, marketing and diet industries and take responsibility for what we cram in our pie holes. -
Jacqueline July 12, 2012
love the comments. One thing I have noticed is that if you cook sweet things from first principles – biscuits, desserts, pies, muffins- then you will become acutely aware of the vast amounts of butter and sugar in one small biccie. This may then give you pause for thought at the next work birthday “one- piece- won’t- hurt” morning tea.
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Helen Razer July 12, 2012
SO true, Jacqueline.
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Danny Dix August 7, 2012
You hit the nail on the head there Jacqueline. I replace sugar with smaller amounts of fruit, desiccated coconut and blended almonds…and it tastes better to boot.
