Michael Pollan Says Health Care Crisis Result of Poor Eating Habits

Now don't get me wrong, I like Michael Pollan's overall message.  He's right, somehow America has lost its way, food-wise.  I have steered my own diet towards local produce, fresh ingredients, and vegetarianism.  However, I had to scoff when I read Michael Pollan's latest op ed in the New York Times, wherein he blames the health care crisis on bad eating.

For one thing, he claims that obesity is responsible for most of the long term chronic conditions listed by the Centers for Disease Control.  If you ask me, when I look at that list, I see a list composed mainly of things that result from smoking.  But this debate is fruitless.

Where I really have to wonder where Pollan gets off is when he starts raving about obesity as being the nation's greatest ill.  Halfway through the article, Pollan starts waxing rhapsodic about how health care reform will convince insurance companies that it's cheaper to treat illness before it starts, and therefore "it's easy to imagine the industry throwing its weight behind a soda tax."  Phrases like "Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits" make me really start to wonder if he's gone off his rocker.  

Also, let us keep in mind that Michael Pollan is not a diet guru.  He's not even a nutritionist.  Pollan is an author with a social agenda, and that agenda is not to help you lose weight.  Put simply, Pollan is a fan of cane sugar and butter.  He feels that these are better for you (or at least less bad) than aspartame or the latest high tech margarine-like substitute.  And he may be right, but the problem is, they're also less fattening.

Pollan's ideal diet is based largely on the sorts of things that people ate 100 years ago.  "Eat what your grandmother would recognize as food" is one of his more memorable mantras.  (Although "great grandmother" might be more accurate.  I don't know about your grandmother, but mine favored spray can cheese, iceberg lettuce with Thousand Island dressing, and ambrosia for dessert.)

This is great as well as it goes, and I think he has made a lot of good points about how we have turned over 100% of our trust in food to the chemical companies, and heaven knows what they're doing to us.  A lifetime of processed foods is probably not going to do you any favors.  But on the other hand, neither will a lifetime of roasted local potatoes with full fat sour cream.

The point Pollan has missed (and I've read both of his food books carefully) is that 100 years ago, people exercised more.  They didn't even call it "exercise," it was just "work."  When we say "work" now, most of us think of a day spent behind a desk.  100 years ago, it meant something a lot more drastic.

I love Michael Pollan for fervently believing that a "foodshed - a diversified, regional food economy" is the best way to prevent childhood obesity.  But I think we need to take him with a big grain of salt (sourced from sustainable local sources).