Hey guys! What’s up? I’ve been super busy, but the good kind of busy where I’m busy doing things I love doing. Needless to say, any crankiness I feel is simply for the pleasure of it.

So, The New York Times featured, yet again, a story on Michael Pollan’s Food Rules. Check it out here – it’s rad as per usual. I’ve written about Pollan, I dunno, like 3 times or more. Let’s face it — I’m in love with this whole literary journalism/literary science writing thing where lit. people get to publish books on science and culture and actually impart change instead of writing about people who do. It’s a very active and fulfilling career, from my standpoint, and after doing some deep thinking about my love for Pollanesque books and my new found love for my ecocriticism class, I’m thinking my senior thesis might be my own Pollan-like manifesto on culture, the environment and our waistlines. All you smarties out there who have book recommendations on American culture, food production, the environment and/or obesity, please recommend in the comments — I’d be so grateful! The thing I enjoyed most from this article were the following “Reasons to Change” — My notes are in bold text:

“Two fundamental facts provide the impetus Americans and other Westerners need to make dietary changes. One, as Mr. Pollan points out, is that populations who rely on the so-called Western diet — lots of processed foods, meat, added fat, sugar and refined grains — ‘invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.’ Indeed, 4 of the top 10 killers of Americans are linked to this diet.

As people in Asian and Mediterranean countries have become more Westernized (affluent, citified (citified = more urban/city-like) and exposed to the fast foods exported from the United States), they have become increasingly prone to the same afflictions.

The second fact is that people who consume traditional diets, free of the ersatz (ersatz = artificial and inferior)  foods that line our supermarket shelves, experience these diseases at much lower rates. And those who, for reasons of ill health or dietary philosophy, have abandoned Western eating habits often experience a rapid and significant improvement in their health indicators.

I will add a third reason: our economy cannot afford to continue to patch up the millions of people who each year develop a diet-related ailment, and our planetary resources simply cannot sustain our eating style and continue to support its ever-growing population.” (Check out the book Diet for a Small Planet– it talks about our food choices and the sustainability of our resources). 

Frankly, I’ve still got one foot on the yellow-brick road to good health and the other on the concrete of despair. I still eat a lot of “processed” foods even if they are indeed healthy. For instance, I eat a lot of organic whole-wheat and brown rice, preservative-free tortillas and even though they only contain wholesome ingredients, I think they might still be considered processed. The lines get fuzzy and it’s hard to decipher sometimes when I’m being a food Nazi and when I’m genuinely acting in my best interest. Pollan, help me out! These food definitions can get quite nebulous. p.s. Dear NY Times, stop using fancy words that I have to look up because it really gives a blow to my English-master-student ego. Thanks.

I also have to wonder — do you think we’re demonizing the American diet? Do you think the description of the standard American diet rings true for those in your social circle? Or is the SAD (Standard American Diet) getting unfairly criticized?

How do YOU define “processed” foods?

<3,

The Cranky One

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Tags: Food Rules, michael pollan, processed foods