Now I'm somewhat of a self-proclaimed foodie who's gained the majority of her food knowledge from the Food Network, Top Chef, and Cooking Light magazine, but I'm just starting to scratch the surface of the world of nutrition. While I have been a consciously "healthy eater" since college - desperately trying to avoid the Freshman-15 - according to Michael Pollan, the way I eat is a prime example of the "nutritionism" that has taken over American diets, and the distinction between healthy eating and nutritious eating.
I would highly recommend reading this book, if only to make you more aware of what you are actually putting in your mouth on a daily basis. I thought it was fascinating how Pollan fleshed out how the American diet, which developed when we learned how to get quick calories from processed grains. However, in processing our foods, we have almost completely rid once nutrient-rich foods of any nutritional value. And that's where the scientists come in. For the past 30 years, food scientists have been trying to pinpoint nutrients, and then use those nutrients or other health claims (low-fat! low-carb! high-fiber!) to make foods seem "healthy" and "nutritious". Pollan begins his book with his mantra, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He dissects each of these statements at the end of the book without prescribing a diet plan, but by providing guidelines that we can all use to make truly nutritious choices in what we eat (don't eat anything with more than 5 ingredients on the box, avoid food in boxes that make health claims, etc.)
Since finishing the book, I have been much more aware of what I'm eating, but I've also realized that some of the things that I thought were healthy are actually just unhealthy in different ways. Take non-fat salad dressing. I've always thought that one of the easiest ways to save myself a hundred calories or so was to pick Fat Free. However, Pollan (and other sources, I've realized) recommend sticking with the full-fat variety. The reality is that non-fat salad dressing is simply substituting the fat with sugar, sodium, and other chemicals, and the fat in an olive-oil based salad dressing (or any other natural oil) actually allows your body to absorb the nutrients in all of the greens in your salad. I call that a win-win.
Now I'm not saying it's easy or inexpensive to eat the way Pollan recommends eating, but it is a kind of ultimate goal. Since there's no organic grocery store within a ten mile radius of my apartment, I have to deal with the minimal organic selection at the Martin's around the corner. And while I'd love to become a member of CSA (community-supported agriculture - they send you a box of produce each week) I'm still at the point in my life where most of that produce would go to waste before I could even think about preparing it. But there are also some things that might take a while to adjust to. Pollan would say that it's actually better for you to drink organic whole milk instead of skim. Unfortunately, I'm just not ready to give up my skim milk, but I can pay the extra dollar for the organic variety.
The bottom line is that it's a process, and even if I can't eat like a farmer, I can at least eat with a little more awareness.
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