Unhappy Meals

J-School professor Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and others, boils it down for the New York Times. Just what can we eat, anyway?

Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

The piece is very long, and very good. All about the rise of “nutritionism” and big science in food. Amazing the way he ties it all together. If you haven’t got time, cheat and skip to the bottom, where you’ll find his nine rules of thumb, tthe most concise of which is embedded in #1: “Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” Easier said than done.