| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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Counterpoints In Science Crazy About Food “You might as well fall flat on your face as lean
over too far backward.”
The food surplus enjoyed by some human societies, particularly the United States of America, is a very recent development in world history. The luxury of having so much and so many kinds to choose from has generated two patterns of eating that are almost polar opposites: rapid consumption of high-calorie, high-fat, standardized meals epitomized by the fast food industry; and dietary fads based on competing theories of “what’s good for you,” the motive force of the health food industry. America’s eating habits have altered the national landscape and have had a global impact, dietetically, culturally, politically, and economically. Every day in the United States, a quarter of the population goes to a fast food restaurant. The McDonald’s Corporation hires a million people annually, including 90 percent of the nation’s first-time workers, most at minimum wage. In his best-selling book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) author Eric Schlosser decries the extent to which the fast-food industry has homogenized our society, malled our landscape, fueled the epidemic of obesity, and imposed American culture on other nations. McDonald’s has 15,000 restaurants in 120 foreign countries and opens four new ones every day. The French sheep farmer Jose Bove became a national hero in 1999 when he tore down a McDonald’s that was under construction, calling it an offense to French culture and cuisine. Nevertheless, McDonald’s is so popular and ubiquitous that, according to Schlosser, the Golden Arches are now more widely recognized around the world than the Christian cross. A few years ago The Economist magazine started publishing a Big Mac Index, comparing the prices of this culinary item in different countries as an indicator of the relative value of their currencies. According to the latest survey, a Big Mac and fries in South Africa costs the equivalent of $2.00, compared to $3.50 in the U.S., which suggests that the South African rand is the world’s most undervalued currency. (An opportunity for international traders to make big money in the exchange markets). In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser focuses on Colorado Springs, with its endless clusters of Kentucky Fried Chickens, Burger Kings, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Subways, Pizza Huts, and Taco Bells. McDonald’s uses Colorado Springs as a test site for automated service. An elaborate unit drops frozen french fries into wire mesh baskets, lowers them into hot oil, lifts and shakes them, then lowers them into the oil again until they are perfectly fried, and finally dumps them underneath heat lamps, crisp and ready to be served. French fries are the most widely sold food-service item in the United States. The production of frozen french fries has become a hugely competitive business, controlled by three giant companies operating on a small profit margin. Out of $1.50 spent on an order of fries, only two cents goes to the farmer who grew the potatoes. Idaho’s potato farmers must get bigger and more automated or get out of the business. Family farms are giving way to corporate farms that stretch for thousands of acres. Schlosser describes a plant in Aberdeen, Idaho, where red conveyer belts crisscross in and out of machines that wash, sort, peel, slice, blanch, blow-dry, fry, and flash-freeze a million pounds of potatoes a day. People love the taste of McDonald’s french fries, a taste largely determined by the cooking oil, which used to be a mixture of beef tallow and cottonseed oil. This mixture gave the fries more saturated fat than a McDonald’s hamburger—and an ideal formula for promoting coronary artery disease and obesity. Under heavy criticism, in 1990 McDonald’s switched to pure vegetable oil, plus some additives to maintain that beefy aroma and flavor. Needless to say, a Big Mac plus fries and a large Coke still provide enough calories, fat, sugar, and salt to feed an African village. Chicken McNuggets, which most customers think of as the healthier alternative, actually contain twice as much fat per ounce as hamburgers. Let it not be said, though, that McDonald’s lacks a scientific approach to its products. Its research department has texture analyzers to measure the “mouthfeel” that customers like, calibrating properties of food such as bounce, creep, crunchiness, “chewiness,” juiciness, spreadability, and “springback.” If fast foods lie at one end of the American nutritional spectrum, an obsession with healthy diets sits at the other. Food, after all, is the fuel of life, and may cause death or illness if it is tainted or spoiled. Everyone recognizes that food is intimately related to health, but what’s healthy or even permissible to eat is constrained by custom, tradition, and religion. Lately, scientific views of nutrition have entered the field, but human physiology and biochemistry are such complex areas of study that new and contradictory dietary theories gush forth constantly from physicians, gurus, and pitchmen of every description—basically, anyone who can get a book or article published. Since none of these diets work for long, there is always a market for more. In his book Health Food Junkies (Broadway Books, 2000), Steven Bratman, who describes himself as an alternative medical practitioner, takes a hard look at the segment of American eating behavior that might be called Slow Food Nation. Formerly an advocate for mending all human ailments by eating right, he confesses that he is no longer a true believer. From his own experience and that of his patients, he has concluded that the search for a cure through diet has become a disease worse than the original problem. He calls this widespread disorder “orthorexia nervosa,” his own variation on the much better known syndrome anorexia nervosa. Anorexia is the neurotic lack of appetite, and those who have it may actually starve themselves to death unless hospitalized and force-fed. Orthorexia, from the Greek “ortho” meaning straight, correct, true, is the neurotic fixation on eating healthy food. Whereas the anorexic and bulimic focus on the quantity of food, the orthorexic focuses on quality—to the point where planning, purchasing, preparing, and eating meals begins to consume all other sources of joy and meaning. Bratman discovered orthorexia nervosa before he became a physician. He was a cook and organic farmer on a commune in upstate New York. He had to prepare several separate menus at each meal: for the meat-eaters, for the vegetarians, for the non-dairy vegans to whom cheese was poison, for the Hindu followers who avoided onions and garlic lest they arouse sexual desire. There were the raw foodists on one side, and the macrobiotics disciples who condemned raw foods on the other. Those who thought the skins of plants contained most of the nutrients contended with those who avoided the skins as concentrates of environmental pollutants. For every dietary theory, there was another that contradicted it. The one thing all these types had in common was disdain for the unenlightened citizens in the surrounding towns, scarfing down their burgers, fries, and chocolate chip cookies. As an “alternative” physician, Bratman has been consulted by hundreds of patients with orthorexia. One suffered from chronic asthma. She improved on an elimination diet, that cut out milk, wheat, soy, and corn. But she wasn’t satisfied, and proceeded to eliminate eggs, avocado, tomatoes, barley, rye, chicken, beef, turkey, salmon, and tuna. Finally, the only foods she could tolerate were lamb and white sugar, with a complex rotation of some of the others. She carries her own foods wherever she goes and, needless to say, isn’t invited out much. Bratman comments that when she took medications, she had practically no asthma symptoms, and she had a life. Now all she has is a menu. Another of his patients, seeking eternal life, ate twelve small meals a day, each consisting of a single food, and took 80 dietary supplements purchased from “health food” stores. Hordes of people now have self-diagnosed food allergies and will happily tell you about all the things they can’t eat. The great majority of these “allergies” are imaginary, as was shown in a double-blind study at the University of California at San Francisco. Volunteers convinced they had allergies were randomized into two groups. Those in one group were incrementally injected with food extracts. Those in the other group were injected with saline solution. Neither the doctors nor the patients knew which material was being injected. “Allergic” reactions such as wheezing, rapid pulse, and abdominal pain were just as common in the saline group as in the food-extracts group. Virtually none of the subjects reacted positively to an extract of the food they were supposedly allergic to. Bratman diagnoses seven hidden agendas of health food junkies: the illusion of total safety; desire for complete control; covert conformity (wanting to be thin without admitting it); searching for spirituality in the kitchen; food Puritanism (delight in self-denial); creating an identity; and fear of others (extreme diet as a way of avoiding being with people). He advises that it’s time to draw the line when the diet makes you sick or miserable or is part of a cult. Between the extremes of fast food dependency and health food junkies, there is still such a thing as actual healthy eating. Such a menu consists mainly of lots of fruits and vegetables, a little fish or meat, and not too much fat or too many calories. Our species did pretty well on this regime for 99.9 percent of its existence, but it’s entirely too simple for most Americans these days. We are dazzled by the culinary options available, the gourmet magazines, the TV ads, and the clamor of diet mavens hawking their notions. Besides, if we all followed such a straightforward program, think of the economic consequences! The vast industries built on restaurant chains, cattle ranches, frozen french fries, “health food supplements,” and new revolutionary diets that tell you how to eat all you want and still lose weight would collapse overnight, deepening the world’s recession. Of course that’s not going to happen. We’re all crazy about food, and all of us are convinced that our own craziness is the way to go. Since September 11, people may be flying less, but they’re not eating less. Fast food nation and slow food nation will continue to provide comfort and support for the economy. The Big Mac Index will shine as a beacon for international currency traders, and health food addicts, endlessly contemplating the yin and yang of the next meal, will always find new do’s and especially don’ts, to feed their habit. Jerold M. Lowenstein is professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. jlowen@itsa.ucsf.edu |
