Beethoven In Trance - Episode 56

For people who are interested in food:

My review of Michael Pollan's two books
In defense of food
Omnivore's Dilemma

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
In his book "In defense of food", Michael Pollan advocates people eating whole foods, and not too much. For example, corn syrup is a man-made food, therefore can not by recognized by your body while sugar can. This lends to the suggestion to use sugar rather than corn syrup for consumption (which is not practiced in the food industry because corn syrup is cheaper). Ever heard of people saying 'Coke Original' taste better? Well, that's because they hadn't replaced the sugar with corn syrup. Eat whole foods, foods that is recognized by your grandma as he put it in the book. Eat as French does, no second serving, eat in a crowd, spend more time around the dining table, to make eating an enjoyable event. By eating slowly, we also learn to appreciate the quality of the food more. He also recommends plants over animal protein as main course. "Use meat as a condiment" as he suggested.

Omnivore's Dilemma
In this book, Michael followed the journey of the industry corn along the industry food chain from the field in Iowa to the American's dinner table. A typical industry corn, (Type 3 corn, recognized across continents) was grown in Iowa in this example, spread with growth enhancer made by nitrate leftover from World War II, Corn is the No. 1 agriculture product in terms of the ability and speed to transform raw petroleum and natural energy into man-made energy. After harvest, they are shipped to wholesale trader in trucks, then transported in bulk to the processing facility owned by Cargil (who is the vertical integrator in the food industry and the largest private owned company in US or the world). In the processing plant, corn turns into Corn Starch, Corn Plastic, Corn Syrup, and numerous corn products that don't have the word 'corn' in their names (ex. ethanol). Corn dominates the farming industry and created a vicious cycle, the more the farmers grow, the lower the market price, the lower the market price, the more government subsidize, the more government subsidize, the more tax payers have to pay for.

Corn gets into American's diet through corn syrup, corn starch, and animal protein. Animal protein? How did that happen? Through animal feeds. Chicken, cow, pig, salmon, you name it. Cow is like a huge fermentation tank that process the corn and transform it into protein. By eating steak, we are eating 'processed corn'. The champion of transforming corn into protein is ... chicken. That's why chicken is cheaper than beef. That also explains why those animals are given antibiotics, because animal can't just live on corn feed, they are born (or used to be born) to eat grass.

The next stop in the food chain is the retail store. Michael mentioned WholeFoods and criticized its diminishing effort to support local growers. In his point of view, local farming is more important than 'industrial organic (such as Earthbound) agriculture', hence should be nurtured.
(as a side note, WholeFoods CEO wrote back to him in a public letter to clarify WholeFoods' sourcing practices and efforts to support local farmers, and Michael replied with another public letter not fully convinced. Both letters are available on WholeFoods' website).

At the end of the book, Michael took us to a journey to created the 'perfect meal' - everything in the dinner will be gathered, hunted and prepared by him. There will be nothing bought from the store. He hunted down a Californian wild boar, gathered bunch wiled mushroom (morel), mined the salt, cultivated wild yeast and harvested some fava beans from his garden. The perfect meal was perfectly natural.


Both books introduced the readers to the 'industry food' to various degrees. Michael's experiences on the Iowa corn field, Kansas cow ranch, and some local chicken farm in VA convinced him that the industry food is cheap for a reason and good quality local food is worth every penny charged. "We are what we eat". Michael suggest us eat selectively, and eat better, enjoy foods more for our own good.


So what do I learn from the books? It sucks to learn that we have been eating corns in various forms (and we are still eating leftovers from WW II), but the reality is, I don't see myself hunting down some wild animal in the Forrest to put dinner on the table any time soon. There are a few inspirations after the reading though.

One thing I have started doing, and I've never realized how much fun doing, is reading the food label, Xantham Gum, Benozate, Citrus Acid ( I don't even know I am spelling them correctly). The label is a shopping list for a chemistry lab (and might be true for the food company research lab). I avoid these products as much as I can. When I pick up a pack of WholeFoods chicken and read on the label "given corn and soybean vegetarian feed', I will laugh and put it down (and wonder: what is a non-vegetarian feed for chicken? chicken?) because the description just tells me that this chicken is no better than any 'regular' industrial chicken therefore doesn't warrant the higher price.

Happy grocery shopping and happy eating.