In Defense of Food
My food resolution this year is simple: eat food. What else would I eat, you ask? Well, according to Michael Pollan in his book In Defense of Food, there is now a lot of edible non-food available in the grocery store.
He writes about the history of food in America and how the idea of what we should eat has been taken over by well intentioned scientists and self-interested industry. We now have a near mono-culture of soybeans and corn. He talks about all the concessions that the USDA has made in their labeling and reccomendations because of industry pressure. I think I just found a consession he didn’t mention.
My friend Laura over at Starling Fitness lists the oils that the USDA reccomends which include soybean oil and corn oil. Those are our surplus crops, but I highly doubt we need ever more of those products in our body. Very interesting… I wonder if someone out there on the internet has already unravled this mystery.
I couldn’t find the spot on where the USDA recommends these oils. I did find a page where they are listed. They use vague language about the oils, so maybe they are trying to avoid industry wrath without lying.
Oils come from many different plants and from fish. Some common oils are:
- canola oil
- corn oil
- cottonseed oil
- olive oil
- safflower oil
- soybean oil
- sunflower oil
I highly recommend In Defense of Food. You can listen to Michael Pollan’s six minutes of advice about nutrition and read an excerpt from his book on NPR, and listen to the more interesting and longer interview he did about the content of his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
[...] book In Defense of Food has reasonable and balanced guidelines for eating in a way that is healthy for us and the earth. He [...]