It has been a just a few days past a year since I first posted on this blog. A lot has changed since then, the most significant of which is that I now have a great job!

Since starting that job, this blog has been greatly neglected. So with that in mind, I will try to post much more often (which may mean shorter posts, but I will try!).

Last night I saw FRESH, the movie. It is a documentary about food, agriculture, and the stories behind the people growing food.

Watch this trailer:

I generally enjoyed the film and the story that unfolded. It is different from other documentaries in that it does not rely too heavily on the facts to tell the story. It is more about using the imagery and the narrative to reach out to the audience.

I liked seeing the sustainably managed farms, and especially Will Allen’s work in an urban setting. The stark comparison to the scenes from industrial farms are a harsh reality that I wish more people could witness.

If you would like to see FRESH, you can get a home screening license to watch in a group with friends, or try to catch a screening near you.

I have yet to see Food, Inc., but I will be seeing it at the end of the month. Perhaps then I can make a fuller comparison.

I watched this TED talk by Jamie Oliver last week and it was quite interesting. I was shocked to see the segment on the children in the classroom he visited in West Virginia. They could not identify vegetables. One child mistook tomatoes for potatoes!

Jamie’s wish is to create a network of organizations and community initiatives to teach kids about food, parents how to cook, and generally get people to eat healthier in the fight against obesity.

For more posts about food, click here.

We may all be familiar with the face of hunger, but undernutrition may be more difficult to detect and treat. Last Tuesday, I attended a lecture by Dr. Jessica Fanzo of the Earth Institute’s Center for Global Health and Economic Development. She spoke about “Global Progress in Ending Hunger and Undernutrition.”

Some symptoms of undernutrition may include stunted growth for children, and overweightness for adults (due to a poor diet). Undernutrition is linked to lack of access to nutritious foods and poor economic opportunities.

Their Millenium Villages Project focuses on 4 main micronutrients: vitamin A, iron, folate, and iodine. These are essential micronutrients that when deficient are known to affect development, immune system function, and can increase disease risk, particularly of young children and pregnant women.

In general, micronutrients are compounds that are found in very small amounts. Plant health is pretty dependent on certain micronutrients in the soil, such as boron, calcium, zinc, iron, and chlorine.

But nutrition is complex and we do not have a full understanding of how it relates to human health, and that is why Dr. Fanzo promotes an overall approach that emphasizes a diverse diet that includes leafy greens and appropriate portions of carbohydrates and eggs or animal protein.

It is a complex problem overall because of a few major factors:

• Nutrition and health issues are “political, administrative, and institutional orphan” because it is “everybody’s business and nobody’s responsibility”
• As a result, there is a lack of political commitment
• Nutrition focused programs are difficult or less popular to fund
• Cultural factors make it tricky to gather support for initiatives

Global food issues are not just about availability of food, but of high quality food. We are still trying to figure out what that is, but we do know that a diverse diet of plants is essential to a healthy body. It saddens me to see that people consistently choose foods that are known to be bad for their health, when there are better alternatives. Especially in the United States, I’m ashamed of what our food culture has become. It happens here and it happens in poor countries as well, according to Dr. Fanzo. Women in the Millennium Villages Project’s villages eat large portions of refined maize meal daily, when native leafy greens are plentiful.

What is difficult now is, how do can people change their food choices and eating behavior? No one likes to be told what to do, especially with their bodies. If that were not true, smoking would not still be as popular today as it is.

Education and advocacy alone will not work. When given a choice between a food item that is tasty but unhealthy and a food item that is healthy but less tasty, the default is to go with the tastier item. The problem is that a lot of the “tastier” stuff is so far from natural that our bodies can’t process them as well as the plants and animals we have evolved to eat.

As a species, we need to return to the foods that have worked for us for hundreds and thousands of years, and wean ourselves off of the super processed foods that hardly resemble food anymore. For the U.S., maybe that will mean government regulations on the food industry, I’m not sure. But I think the only way that undernutrition and hunger will be alleviated in many places in the world will be through planning that involves capacity building for villagers to gather and grow nutritious food. It certainly will not solve any problems to send them corn meal grown in the U.S.

Thoughts?


Related posts

• Gates: More Money for Global Health Is Good for the Environment
• Dot-Mom:Point of View: Investing in Maternal Health
• My Thoughts on the Food Network’s image and role in food culture

Image credit: Flickr user publik16

Watch the Food Network for a few hours of programming and count up the number of times a healthy eating habit is promoted. You won’t count very high.

Even with over 50% of the U.S.’s adult population overweight or obese (Wikipedia citation), healthy food and eating is on the backburner for the Food Network. As the premiere food oriented channel on basic cable, the Food Network should be more concerned with being the leading resource for good eating and lifestyle habits that can shape the country’s dietary future.

Image credit: Flickr user wallyg

I have been watching the Food Network a lot these past few weeks, and one thing seems to bother me incessantly about their programming. It is greasy, sugary, fatty, and generally unhealthy! Now, I don’t think we should tend towards the fanatic side of “nutritionism,” but more like eating less processed foods and more whole foods cooked in less grease.

A quick rundown of the shows (This is by no means a comprehensive study or accurate list of statistics. It is just an estimate from data I have gathered from viewing experience and online perusing.):
# fatty, meaty shows = 8
# sugary = 6
# of hosts who are overweight = at least 6
NONE of the primary programs have health themes

My least liked show is “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” where host Guy Fieri goes to different, usually very greasy, restaurants around the country and stuffs his face. Although I do think the places he goes to often have a nice story and culture, I feel like the show still promotes the culture of big portions and greasy plates.

The main idea behind the philosophy of the Food Network is cooking and eating for pleasure and comfort, with very little thought for important lifestyle factors that affect health. For many of the network’s shows, tasting good and feeling good are made to seem synonymous with happiness. While I am not saying that this should be true, I disagree with the pathway by which we should reach this type of happiness.

I’m do enjoy watching the Food Network, but only for entertainment purposes and not culinary education (at least not for the most part). Why would I trust someone who does not look like they have a healthy diet? I care about my health, and would appreciate it if the themes promoted by television were more responsible than they are presently.

On October 10th, a beautiful morning even if the slightly overcast sky and the occasional drips of water threatened more rain, I set out for Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I took part in a group hike through the park with the goal of foraging and learning about foraging in this urban parkscape. The group was led by Leda Meredith, author of “Botany, Ballet, and Dinner from Scratch,” as part of Green Edge NYC’s urban foraging series.

Stepping into the park, I wasn’t sure what to expect for the next 2 and half hours. What I came to realize, though, was that this city is not devoid of edible plants even though it is not as “natural” as people may perceive it to be. My own family members were skeptical that we would find anything when I told them about it later.

The parks of New York turn out to have not only edible greens, but species that are good for medicinal and seasoning purposes too. Leda told us about dandelion leaves, epazote, gingko leaves and nuts, and many others.

For a better look at what we did, watch this video I made:

Check out Leda’s website here and Green Edge NYC’s here.

Also an article in the book The Best American Science Writing 2007 is a piece called “Cooking for Eggheads” by Patricia Gadsby on molecular gastronomy, which is the study of the physical and chemical processes that go into cooking food.

It is interesting to think about this field of science and compare it to what nutritionists do. Nutritionists try to break food down into their essential parts and attempt to inject things where they do not naturally belong. Molecular gastronomists, on the other hand, are scientists who want to know what is happening to the molecular structures in food when they are cooked or otherwise manipulated.

Gadsby talks about how one person she interviewed, Hervé This (pronounced Tiss), demonstrated that the texture of cooked eggs is completely determined by the temperature, not the time, at which they are cooked. A few degrees make a difference because different proteins in the yolk and white coagulate at different temperatures in the range of 142-184˚F.

Hervé This makes the point that what molecular gastronomists are interested in is figuring out the mechanisms, but people who throw around the term molecular gastronomy to describe fancy cooking techniques essentially should not be considered representative of this field of science. Molecular gastronomists are more like the physicists who are looking to find the laws of the universe, just instead of the universe they are interested in the laws of food and cooking. But like nutritionism giving the false perception of understanding the composition of food, showy restaurant chefs are giving the public a misconstrued image of molecular gastronomy.

But there is a good side to everything, and exposing people to new techniques draws attention and recognition to the field. The tricky part is then to convince those people that there is a greater purpose to experimenting with food than to just have a cool trick to show. Molecular gastronomy brings us closer to understanding the complex nature of different types of food applied to heat and other external forces. By understanding these processes, we may get closer to finding out what makes food nutritious and how to maximize that nutritional value.

Image credit:
Flickr user Marco Veringa

As promised, though a bit late, here are some general guidelines for buying and consuming food as suggested by Michael Pollan in the ending chapters of In Defense of Food.

He covers a lot of ideas while giving some advice and I will summarize here some of the ones I think are key. I really recommend reading the book for some great stories, examples, and information in addition to more detailed advice!


1. “Eat food.”
When it comes to eating, humans have evolved to eat natural plant and animal products. A vast amount of the food found in markets and on shelves, however, have been processed past the point of recognition. Pollan suggests eating things that your great-grandparents would still be able to identify as food. He makes the point that all the whole foods tend to be on the outsides of the supermarket (in the produce, meat, and dairy sections). So stay away from those boxed goodies that big companies spend all that advertising to get you to buy it!


2. “Mostly plants.”
Humans have also evolved to be mostly herbivorous. We still don’t fully understand what processed foods do for our health, and we won’t know for a long time. There is that quote that supposedly a Japanese person said where they would wait to see what happens to the Americans with their Western Diet before trying it, much like a nutrition/health experiment.

Though many processed foods are claimed to be full of nutrients and other things good for our health, the nutrients and other things did not occur naturally in the food product. They were somehow injected or supplemented in the product. We can’t be sure that this way these nutrients are being brought into our body are actually efficient or beneficial. We should stick to what we are sure of, which are the plants and combinations of them in certain cuisines that have proven to be good for our bodies.


(On a side rant, plants have really gotten a bad rap in American culture. Plants have become the side dish to increasingly unhealthy entrees of meat. It will be difficult to work plants out of the negative stigma that many people have, but there is progress being made. HOWEVER, I’m tired of people asking me if I am a vegetarian just because I like to eat mostly plants. Just because my meal is NOT 80% meat, does not mean that I’m a hippy, veggie-loving vegetarian or vegan, though a part of me might be. It should not be the alternative lifestyle to eat more plants than meat. It should be THE lifestyle.)


3. “Not too much.”
Portions are out of control in this country. It has become somewhat of an expectation among Americans that for a small buck you can get a plateful of fried food. Studies have suggested that Americans eat until there is none left in the bag, on the plate, etc., instead of assessing their physical state of fullness. Some European cultures have been shown to be better at this, while they also tend to enjoy their food in meals that are take more time and are more social. Taking more time to eat means the body has more time to realize it is receiving food, and also makes food a more cultural experience.

Thanks for reading! Comments are welcome, as always!

I’m somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to seafood sustainability. I doubt that any fish farming endeavor is completely waste-free or low-enough-ecological-impact to be done at the scale that would be needed to wean our culture off of a meat (and soy) industry that is tearing up the planet. You may not be aware, but much of the deforestation in South America is either for cattle raising or soy bean production. Much of the soy being grown is exported to be used as livestock feed, not for direct human consumption.

However, I do still think that it is necessary for most humans to have some animal protein in their diet (because our bodies have evolved this way). By “some,” I mean about the size of a deck of cards per week per adult. That is really all anyone who isn’t training or super active needs. (But of course, our tendency to want everything in excess defies self-control or self-denial.)

To help out, here are some links to a guide for how to judge your choices:

• http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_regional.aspx
• http://www.blueocean.org/seafood
• an interesting article!

Image Credit:
Flickr user SunnyvaleRocks

Will Allen is an urban farmer featured in this NYT article. He does interesting work in greenhouses to feed 10,000 local people. It is so exciting to see something great happening where it is needed most.

Urban centers, especially inner city areas, often lack access to fresh produce. This has enormous implications for health because, while it is easier to get a hamburger and fries for dinner, no one will be able to stop the obesity trends.

The article talks about composting and urban farming and the recent rise in appreciation and interest for such work.

The author seems to make a big deal about farming systems that close the cycle, using the “waste” to continue the growth and nutrient cycle.

But this is not something new!! We have been aware of these ecological principals for such a long time. By we, I mean scientists…and all the old school farmers who understood the relationships between all the living things on their farms.

There is no waste in Nature! That is the missing underlying idea that the author skips over. The history of how we are returning to this type of farming is not mentioned at all.

But the author makes a good point of bringing up the fact that farms like these are not and can not be self sufficient with the current condition. Will Allen’s farm receives grants and other types of support to keep up and running. For more similar farms to be successful, it has to become profitable. It makes me sad to say that, but it is basically true.

In any case, it is an enjoyable and informative article and I hope you read it!

“Helps lower cholestorol.”
“Natural source of antioxidants.”
“Low fat.”
“Made with all natural ingredients.”

You’ve probably seen them all. All these are health claims you might come across in any typical grocery store. The natural instinct for the consumer is to trust these types of statements. They are often backed by a government agency, after all. But what does it mean to be a “qualified” health claim.

Here is a quote from Michael Pollan, on page 156 of In Defense of Food,

“The FDA’s own research indicates that consumers have no idea what to make of qualified health claims (how would they?), and its rules allow companies to promote the claims pretty much any way they want – they can use really big type for the claim, for example, and then print the disclaimers in teeny-tiny type.”

The FDA rules were changed in 2003 to allow for several degrees of certainty for health claims. Some may think that this allows for more flexibility for ill-founded claims by food makers, and others may think that this makes more information available to the public. Considering that the important information is usually in the fine print that hardly anyone reads, leads me to side with the first group.

Much of the evidence for health claims is only marginally supportive. There is hardly anything that we know for certain or understand about the nutrients and chemical make-up of food products or what our body does with them. In nature, many of the compounds may only helpful to our body in combination with other naturally found compounds. There is still a lot unknown about what it is about healthy food that is good for us.

One thing that we can rely on is that eating plants is generally good for human health. Our bodies have evolved alongside these plant species that we like to eat, so that now our digestive systems are well equipped to handle them. Something that we can now see is that our bodies are not as well equipped to handle highly processed plant products, like high-fructose corn syrup. Perhaps after a few more thousand years in our diet, our bodies will process it just as well as we process plants now.

From the food producing companies’ perspective, getting the right health claim printed on your product’s packaging seems like the golden ticket in the food industry nowadays. You also need to keep up with the times, because, just as quickly as one fad enters the scene, another one could take over with a new clinical study.

Health claims are in some ways the food industry’s way of pandering to the paranoia of some members of society to “be healthy,” while still working towards the goal of selling more calories. A large portion of marketing resources goes into making sure that your product is viewed in a positive light. Misleading and deceptive statements on the part of the food producer is a common way to do this.

But, from the consumer’s perspective, health claims are supposed to be helpful guidance for what kinds of choices are available. When these can’t be trusted for their face value, and the fine print is written in such a way that would require interpretation to gather real meaning, what’s the average shopper to do?

One piece of advice from Pollan is to look at the number of ingredients going into a food product. The more numerous the ingredients, the farther it is likely to have gone down the processing line. In general, processed foods are not as good for you as “whole” foods. He also suggests staying away from products that have too many hard-to-pronounce ingredients.

For more suggestions and guidance on how to approach shopping for food, my last entry about In Defense of Food is posted here and includes a summary of some of Pollan’s suggestions and a few personal observations.

Image credit:
Flicker users {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester} and cafemama