I am slowly catching up on recent movements and literature about the food system. In the case of the book In Defense of Food, by the UC Berkeley professor, journalist and author Michael Pollan, I am about 10 years late. No doubt things have changed in the last decade, but I’m sure the core messages in his book remain intact.

So what is the problem? Our food system has changed drastically in the past 70 years or so (unbeknownst to many of us), and the so-called foods produced in mass today are likely a key factor to waves of health problems (which are not seen in places that don’t eat like we do): “fully a quarter of all Americans suffer from metabolic syndrome, two thirds of us are overweight or obese, and diet-related diseases are already killing the majority of us.” (as of 2008)

Most of the food items we encounter are industrially-produced, highly processed and though they purport to be food they are nutritionally deficient (e.g. contain less vitamins and fiber than the original food) and are actually making followers of the Western Diet sick with so-called Western diseases (obesity, cardiovascular, diabetes and others). Our overall interaction with food goes far beyond the actual food item itself, and includes things like the soil and conditions where the food was grown as well as how much of it we eat and how we eat it (e.g. socially with others and taking our time vs. in a rush by ourselves).

(mass-produced) Food in the USA (and other places following our pattern) is made first and foremost to be cheap and convenient. Quantity over quality. Making food that can travel long distances and stay on shelves for long times requires lots of processing, chemicals and drains the foods of it nutrients. Though we shouldn’t be too hung up on nutrients we should instead focus on the good whole (not processed) foods that provide them.

Rather than go over the entire book or regurgitate Pollan’s food rules (helpful reminders like “Avoid food products that make health claims”), I thought I’d share a few of the things that I learned.

Where did all the imitation food go? Producers used to be required to label food as “imitation” if it claimed to be a well-known food but was made using unexpected or non-traditional ingredients. But in 1973 that requirement was removed by the FDA and since then all sorts of changes to well-known foods have been allowed without making consumers aware (other than the lengthy, unpronounceable ingredients list).

Our overall food supply is not as diverse as our bodies expect/need – humans have traditionally eaten thousands of different plants and animals. But today about 2/3 or the calories we eat come from just four (tax-subsidized) crops: wheat, corn, soybeans and rice. Food and dairy animals also subsist on these few crops.

People who take vitamin supplements tend to be healthier, but there is no evidence that it is the supplements that make them healthier. They could just be people living a healthier lifestyle already with more economic means.

Nutritional deflation: industrial food today has lower levels of nutrients. To get the same level of iron that was in an apple in 1940, you’d need to eat three today. This is possibly due to the synthetic fertilizers used or the tendency to select or engineer faster-growing and higher-yielding varieties. Similar issues arise with the nutritional content of milk from dairy cows.

What’s the difference between glucose, sucrose and fructose? All I knew was that fructose was different from glucose and came from fruit, so I was glad Pollan straightened it out and summarized it well (so well in fact that I will quote him): “Glucose is a sugar molecule that is the body’s main source of energy; most carbohydrates are broken down to glucose during digestion.” Sucrose aka table sugar has one molecule each of glucose and fructose. “Fructose is metabolized differently than glucose; the body doesn’t respond to it by producing insulin to convey it into cells to be used as energy. Rather, it is metabolized in the liver, which turns it first into glucose and then, if there is no call for glucose, into triglycerides – fat.”

Eating food with fiber makes us feel full and stop eating, but fiber is often removed from food during processing – so we tend to eat more food than we need.

My main takeaways:

1. eat more whole foods or minimally-processed foods
2. tend toward smaller portions. “unit bias” makes us think we need to consume all of the (oft times massive) serving sizes
3. nutrients and food items are just part of the picture – consider the overall lifestyle and where/how food is consumed

This post just goes over some of the content in this well-written book. I recommend reading the book or the offshoot book, Food Rules, which has the practical advice on how to eat healthy.

There is also a PBS documentary from 2015 in which Pollan covers the same ground and expands a few points. Watching it may require membership – at least it did for my station, KQED. Pollan interviews scientists who study things like “why is breast milk the perfect food?” and get deep into our microbiome (bacteria we’re hosting in our gut/intestines). It also follows average Americans dealing with the health problems caused by our collective diet.