One of the New York Times' 10 best books of 2006 was The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, professor of journalism at the University of California. His essay in the paper, Unhappy Meals, demonstrates why his book was worthy of the accolade. In 20 easily digested pages he discusses the tremendous confusion surrounding food and the dangers of prescribing nanny state diets. It may not please parts of the food industry, but it adds immeasurably to the debate.
Pollan uses colourful and evocative phrases such as "to enter a world in which you dine on unseen nutrients needs lots of expert help" and "the fate of each whole food rises and falls with every change in the nutritional weather, while processed foods are simply reformulated"
US readers are reminded that in 1977 an official panel recommended cutting down on saturated fat and eating more starch. The food industry produced a range of low-fat foods. Twenty-five years later, after bingeing on carbohydrates, "America got really fat", says Pollan. The message to eat more low-fat foods had been taken literally with terrifying results.
Pollan condemns the use of surveys based on people consuming a certain number of calories because most people lie about what they eat. The US consumes food equivalent to 3,900 food calories per person per day, but people report that they only eat 2,000. Pollan is alarmed by the use of data from analysis of complex questionnaires to decide questions of diet and health policy in the US, given the seesaw tendency of people to follow latest advice by eating more of some things and less of others.
Official policy that motivates the food industry to tinker with food to remove certain nutrients has been proven not to work. But nobody wants to admit it.
As manufactured foods have become more refined, western consumers have become more dependent on sugar. Pollan quotes one nutritionist as describing the situation as a "national experiment in mainlining glucose"
He fears that an "oversupply of macronutrients" accompanied by an "undersupply of micronutrients" threatens the health of the western world.
Clare Cheney is director general of the Provision Trade Federation