Books, Faith, World & More

What You Don’t Notice Can Hurt You

A Review of Food Politics and of In Defense of Food

Daniel Hertzler

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Our Nutrition and Health, by Marion Nestle. University of California Press, 2002, 2007.

In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. The Penguin Press, 2008. 

These two texts complement each other. The first is a research report and the second a sermon with three points. If you can read only one book on the subject, read the second. But the two together provide a more complete picture. They show that corporations have taken over food production in the U.S.—and that the results are not for our good.

We may remember that early in the twentieth century entrepreneurs and corporations took manufacturing away from craftsmen and drove prices down. Henry Ford introduced the assembly line and lowered the price of the Model T Ford so that even the workers could afford to buy one.

Since World War II corporations have moved into food production, and the result has been somewhat similar to Ford’s assembly line. Americans have some of the cheapest food in the world as food companies compete with one another to get us to eat their food. But as Nestle shows, quality has suffered and overeating is widespread, particularly of fast food and snacks. Pollan asserts that the loaf of bread you buy in the supermarket will not support your system in the same way as the loaf your great-grandmother made from grain ground at the local mill.

Nestle provides extensive documentation of corporation pressure against the efforts of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate processed foods. Some of the food companies’ activities remind us of tobacco companies. Then we notice that some of the food companies are owned by tobacco companies. Nestle is identified as Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University. As a nutritionist, she has been involved in political activities regarding food and has had access to studies about the effects of food on our bodies. The book documents the baneful effects of some corporation food.

In the introduction she mentions several themes which will appear in the book. One is the “‘paradox of plenty’ a term used by historian Harvey Levenstein to refer to the social consequences of food overabundance, among them the sharp disparities in diet and health between rich and poor. . . . Most paradoxical in the presence of food overabundance is that large numbers of people in the United States do not have enough to eat” (27).

The second theme involves the scientific approach to finding what is wholesome and appropriate food. Some advocate other means of discernment. In addition, the interpretation of scientific studies may be controversial. “Government agencies invoke science as a basis for regulatory decisions. Food and supplement companies invoke science to oppose regulations and dietary advice that might adversely affect sales” (28).

A third theme is that “diet is a political issue. . . . Dietary practices raise political issues that cut right to the heart of democratic institutions” (28).

Nestle reports that the FDA has been repeatedly outmaneuvered by food companies. In Part One they are “Undermining Dietary Advice,” particularly the food pyramid which was intended to help people know what proportion of various foods to eat for a wholesome diet. She writes, “Food industry pressure on Congress and federal agencies, ties between nutritionists and the food industry, an inability of just about everyone to separate science from personal beliefs and opinions (whether recognized or not) affect dietary advice” (91).

Part Two, “Working the System,” describes how food companies use lobbying to get an advantage, and if that is not fully effective, they may use “hardball” tactics, lawsuits which are legal, and other schemes which may cross the line. Included here is an account of Oprah Winfrey’s conflict with the beef industry. She was sued for bad-mouthing hamburgers. Winfrey won the suit, but it was reported to have cost her more than $1 million (164).

Part Three is “Exploiting Kids and Corrupting Schools.” This details some of the food companies’ efforts to advertise to children before they are old enough to tell the difference between entertainment and commercials. Chapter 9 describes the efforts of soft drink companies to promote their sugar water in schools. In some cases they have gotten cash hungry schools on their side by subsidizing school programs.

Part Four shows how makers and sellers of dietary supplements convinced the public and Congress that their products “did not need to be regulated according to the strict standards applied to conventional foods and drugs” (219). Part Five describes how “marketers are attempting to transform junk foods into health foods” (336).

Chapter 15 tells the strange story of olestra, a non-digestible fat substitute developed by Proctor and Gamble which was supposed to make potato chips more healthful since the substance in which they were fried was not digestible. But foods made with olestra “may be fat-free but they are not calorie-free” (340). People eating snack foods fried in olestra may conclude that they are free to eat more and thus gain weight instead of losing weight.

Nestle observes that “no functional foods can ever replace the full range of nutrients and phytochemicals present in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, nor can they overcome the detrimental effects of diets that are not already healthful” (355). In her conclusion, Nestle suggests that we as eaters may vote with our forks.

The 2007 edition of Nestle’s book is basically the same as 2002, but the author has added a new Preface and an Afterword. The Preface mentions some furious reaction to her book even before it was published. The Afterword describes ongoing efforts to regulate foods and beverages. “By the end of 2006 the lines were drawn. Advocates as well as investment analysts, lawyers, and legislators had placed food companies on notice that they would have to change business practices in response to childhood obesity or face dire consequences” (393). 

This can serve as an introduction to Pollan’s sermon, In Defense of Food. He lists the three points of his sermon at the beginning of the book. Then after extensive documentation of the problem, he explicates the three at the end. The three points are “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants” (1). The explications are more complex and interesting than I expected.

Pollan is a journalist, not a nutritionist, and he has some concern about the scientific approach to nutrition which Nestle tends to support. “Over the last several decades, mom lost much of her authority over the dinner menu, ceding it to scientists and food marketers (often an unhealthy alliance of the two) and, to a lesser extent, to the government with its ever shifting dietary guidelines, food-labeling rules, and perplexing pyramids” (3).

So now we have nutritionism with its “widely shared but unexamined assumption that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient. Put another way: Foods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts” (28). This makes it possible to manipulate the parts under the assumption that less of one and more of another will make us healthier.

Whereas Nestle seems to favor scientific studies of food to see which foods are good for us, Pollan challenges this. “To make food choices more scientific is to empty them of their ethnic content and history; in theory, at least, nutritionism proposes a neutral, modernist, forward-looking, and potentially unifying answer to the question of what it might mean to eat like an American” (58). Pollan would not go there.

The problem, he says, is the “Western Diet.” The features of that are “lots of processed food and meat, lots of added sugar, lots of everything except fruits, vegetables, and whole grains” (89). He reports that when indigenous people adopt this diet, they accept the same diseases that afflict modern Western people: diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

He develops his answer by explicating his three points. In so doing he makes more generalizations than we readers will remember, but since they are printed instead of delivered orally, we can review them from time to time. Here are some samples. The first generalization under Point One is “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food” (148). A second one makes this clearer: “Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) Unfamiliar, B) Unpronounceable, C) More than five in number, Or that include D) High-fructose corn syrup” (150). With this in mind I checked a bag of pretzels and some ice cream we had bought for a dinner party. Both violated the four-point rule. These are only the beginning of generalizations supporting the first point.

For some reason he discusses the third point before the second. Included here are “If you have the space, buy a freezer” (168) and “Eat well-grown food from healthy soils” (169). He points out that “organic” may cover a multitude of sins, so we should be discerning. “Most consumers automatically assume that the word ‘organic’ is synonymous with health, but it makes no difference to your insulin metabolism if the high fructose corn syrup in your soda is organic” (170). Also, he adds, “Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism” (176).

Under the second point (now the third) he asserts “Pay more, Eat less” (183). As Pollan notes, the emphasis in America has been to keep food costs down. I have noticed this particularly in prices for eggs and chicken. I remember that as a young farmer in the ’40s, I raised broilers over the summer and sold them for 35 cents a pound, live weight. I do not know what the products of the chicken factory are sold for today, but I wonder how much higher they are despite years of inflation. Pollan points out that if we pay more we’re less likely to overeat. The unwary will be taken in by the siren song of the fast food people advertising hamburgers at a price that can’t be beat. Another recommendation is to “Eat meals rather than snacks” (188) and “Do all your eating at a table” (192). Finally, “Cook, and, if you can, plant a garden” (197). 

So there we have it. We’re not doomed to follow the food marketers even though their commercials appear regularly on television. There is a way out of the food maze if we pay attention. Here and there we hear of people making a move in the right direction. For example, there are community gardens in our area. And Michelle Obama has arranged for an organic garden on the White House lawn. One rumor has it that Dow Chemical is alarmed by its organic nature.

In addition, in Atlantic Magazine (July/August, 2009) there is the account of Tony Geraci, food-service director for the public schools of Baltimore who has changed the food available to students. “He stocked vending machines with box lunches that met the wellness policy’s nutritional requirements” (32). Other food directors are making similar progress. “What unites these leaders is not grand ideology, but hardheaded realism about maneuvering through chronically underfunded systems.”

If food-service directors can make progress against the fast food giants, we can too.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, is an editor, writer, and chair of the elders, Scottdale Mennonite Church.