"Eat food. Not so much. Mostly plants."
If you read a recent Sunday New York Times Magazine, you'll recognize the phrase. It was at the beginning of a long article on "nutritionism," but those three short sentences said it all.
The author even thought so, but he still went on to write 1,000 words on the topic. It was a powerful examination of the American relationship with food. I read every word. And it's still consuming me.
I announce, when I offer classes involving food, "I'm not a nutritionist or a dietician; I'm just an eater and a thinker." And because of Dr. Michael Pollan, the author of this food treatise (a profes-sor of journa-lism by the way, not a food scientist) I'm doing less of the former and more of the latter. See what you think.
"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother would not have recognized as food."
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At this moment you might be saying to yourself, "But a lot of those boxes of convenience foods are now 'low fat.'" Don't be so sure. If they're actually lower in fat, they're not that much lower.
Heavy promotion on the box almost always means added sugar or salt. Or it could work the other way, maybe the package says "reduced sugar" or (here's a tricky one) "no sugar added," but there are increases in saturated fat. We do love our food ... addictions.
Thinking about all this had me looking at nutritional labels with greater scrutiny this week, always starting at the top with portion size. And I'm looking more closely at my dinner plate too.
I know that a portion size of pasta is a half-cup. I don't always get portion sizes right, but that's embedded in my mind. I also know this (because of a presentation by a nutrition-conscious cardiac care nurse); twenty years ago a restaurant serving of pasta was two cups. Today, a restaurant serving is four cups. That's could be as much as 800 calories, without sauce. To maintain my weight I only need 1,600-1,800 calories a day. Do I want almost half of it to be pasta — without the sauce? Don't think so.
This is heartfelt. This New York Times article I'm so taken with, "Unhappy Meals" said we should avoid foods that contain ingredients which are:
1) unfamiliar;
2) unpronounceable; and
3) more than five in number.
The same Sunday morning reading alerted me that even though MacDonald's announced years ago (three to be exact) they were changing the oil in which they cook their French Fries, with the intention of eliminating trans fats; apparently they've not done it yet. Shame on me, I took my granddaughter there this summer and told her I was sure they had.
Old and young, let's think more carefully about the food we eat. Dr. Pollan might say, "Consider food less a thing and more a long-term relationship." Let's do that.
Sharon Johnson is an associate professor in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University and on the faculty of the OSU Extension Service. She can be reached at s.johnson@oregonstate.edu
