Eater's Digest: The American Food Fight

By Scott Norgaard     2/18/10 6:00pm

Why has food become such a concern for the modern American? How did this basic human requirement transform into something so much greater? Today, the question of what to eat fails to suggest a simple solution, and purported experts in the subject provide no reassurance. Dietitians, nutritionists, food salesmen, those in agribusiness, the government and the media offer us different, often contradictory advice about what we should and should not eat.

Despite the wealth of scientific research available to us, we face increasingly complicated choices; despite our seeming obsession with the latest fad diets, obesity remains a large problem for the country - The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that in 2007-08, 68 percent of the population was obese or overweight.

In his 2006 book The Omnivore's Dilemma, journalist Michael Pollan explores various facets of Americans' problematic relationships with food. He suggests that the United States' free economy and lack of a longstanding culinary tradition make us particularly susceptible to diet trends and fads. Unlike in France or Italy, where the region's cuisine is largely established and culinary questions are answered by simply looking at predecessors' diets, Americans face a relatively new cornucopia of food choices.

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The U.S. government also weighs in on the situation, providing guidelines on food preparation, nutrition labels courtesy of the FDA and billions of dollars given to U.S. farmers in the form of subsidies. Each of these interventions has a substantial impact on the food that enters our bodies.

Food businesses also largely shape this process with their profit margins; they are motivated to produce whatever Americans are willing to buy. This in turn provides incentive for businesses to increase convenience foods for consumers by producing foods with long shelf lives. These money-hungry corporations keep an eye on the consumer, manufacturing tasty, often health-hazardous products equipped with flashy advertising slogans.

This is where it starts getting convoluted. Over the shouts of both government and food producers, we hear the blaring advice of nutritionists and dietitians, each with their own set of tips and tricks to guarantee weight loss, improve energy intake and cure a host of Americans' various ailments, even to cure these maladies with food itself. Magazines provide no respite from this confusion, offering conflicting nutritional advice, raising select foods to the glory of vitamin-enriched "super foods" while eternally delegating others to nearly criminal status.

In my new column on food, I will seek to clear a pathway through the jungle that has become the grocery store. I will take a look at what we should be eating, while also considering the reasons why we should eat them and the conditions that have resulted in the food situation today. Food, which may on the outside appear innocent and basic, is connected to nearly everything: the media, business, culture and politics. I will recommend and research the best food to consume in today's popular culture. For instance, next week, we will explore the connection between psychology and its effect on our eating habits.

A good diet can improve and enrich our lives, and I invite you to join me in my expedition through the complex world of food, venturing back in search of the best diet available and examining the web of business and government actions that have fractured our relationship with food. What was once a short farm-to-table food chain has been extended and complicated, influenced by corporations, governmental organizations and food scientists. Join me in my mission to rediscover a shared human necessity.

Scott Norgaard is a Sid Richardson College freshman.

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