Last week I mentioned Michael Pollin’s book In Defense of Food as a reference to the benefits of a mainly vegetarian diet. What I didn’t mention is that Pollin and his book are quite the hot button topic lately. Pollin’s book amounts to an attack on the very foundations of how we provide food today and as such is a great segue into one of the weirdest aspects of dieting: conspiracy theories. I’m not necessarily speaking of conspiracy theories by definition, but to the nature of the very broad spectrum of flimsily supported opinions about food and food production spanning the whole of the issue.
For instance, Pollin’s arguments focus on the nature of food itself. He believes that we should be eating more natural food and less food augmented with nutrients. He claims there is much less food in our food. This is a sliver of the organic vs. mass production model of agriculture. For some time organic foods have been touted as the healthier, tastier, more nutritious of foods available. They have also been the most expensive. Further, the labels used to identify an organic food product can be difficult to understand because non-organic food companies have been using weasel word advertising to imply that their product is organic as well. Finally, to further complicate the issue, recent research shows that there is no nutritional difference between organic and non-organic foods. Pro-organic shoppers argue it isn’t just about the nutritional quality, it’s also about the use of potentially harmful pesticides and fertilizers. Sites like foodnews.org claim to track the levels of such dangerous chemicals in everyday foods that you might buy. Nevertheless, it would also seem that even the idea that organic foods taste better is a myth:
Proponents of the way agriculture works now also point to how seemingly necessary these fast and modified ways of growing food are. In fact, it’s fair to say that the scientists who developed these methods are true heroes:
Opponents, on the other hand, are quick to point to unwanted consequences. In fact, it has seemed a fairly popular documentary topic lately. Some of them have been quite compelling, as with Food, Inc.’s investigation into how our food is manufactured.
Indeed, we’re given the question, what do we know and what do we want to know about what we eat? It’s not inconceivable for a child to believe that farming doesn’t actually happen anymore, everything is created in a lab. When we don’t understand the nature of our food, we take that food for granted and, I believe, this is the core of our obesity epidemic.
Most intriguingly then, we have to wonder if there isn’t some entity out there behind the scenes controlling the various chess pieces to a favorable outcome; something akin to a pharmaceutical company that owns one of the largest corn production companies that creates the corn syrup that gives the people diabetes and other health issues that cause them to turn to that same company for their drugs that they need to make them “healthy” enough to continue purchasing food. Sound far fetched? Take the case presented in The Future of Food:
The very nature of patenting seeds has allowed large companies to take over family owned businesses in a manner akin to hostile business takeovers… except multimillion dollar companies are taking over poor farmers because a pervasive and disease resistant strain of wheat or soy has polluted the farmer’s crops. I don’t generally buy that there are hands in things so deep as to completely control all aspects of such large societal systems. I believe that these systems are, frankly, too big to be controlled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t manipulate them. However, I also don’t believe that they think too far into the future. Most companies I’ve had experience with are so shortsighted as to cut off their own noses in order to be profitable for the quarter.
So are there big companies manipulating our food system? Doubtless, yes. Are they doing it maliciously? Some may be, insomuch as it improves their profit margins. But don’t neglect the power the average consumer yields, as pointed out by Food, Inc.: if we make our preferences heard, the retailers hear only the sound of cash staying stuck in our pockets and begin to make concessions, sometimes quite quickly. Your real solution? I guess, buy local, buy in season, and grow your own garden. If you can’t seem to do this (I’ve only really been successful with one of the three) then accept that you may be slowly poisoning yourself to survive.
