In Defense of Food (Chapter #1)*

1. In Defense of Food (Chapter #1)* Michael Pollan

2. Title • Pollan subtitles his book “An Eater’s Manifesto,” and this choice of language is significant. • What is he implicitly referencing here and why? • According to Marx, the working class (under capitalism) is living in a “mystified” state of “false consciousness,” where they have been blinded by the ideology of capitalism—one that tells them that their horrid working conditions are natural and inescapable. • What parallels are there between Marx’s view of working conditions and Pollan’s view of food?

3. Introduction • “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” • What do you take Pollan to mean by this concise formulation? • With regard to “eating food,” why does Pollan tell the reader to “avoid products that make health claims” (2)? • Would you include yourself in the group of people who feels anxiety/confusion at the grocery store? Why or why not? • What do you think of the claim that the current generation won’t outlive its parents due to “Western” diets consisting of processed foods?

4. Introduction • What do you think of Pollan’s claim that there is a “Conspiracy of Scientific Complexity,” i.e., that nutritional science is to blame for our confusion in the grocery store? • When you shop, do you think about food as food, or as a vehicle for nutrients (or fuel)? • Do you seek “expert help in deciding what to eat” because of the complexity involved in eating decisions (8)? • Would you say you have access to food culture or food traditions, or do you eat what you see on T.V.?

5. Introduction • Given Pollan’s claim that “the chronic diseases that now kill most of us can be traced directly to the industrialization of food,” have you personally experienced loved ones that might have been effected by this? • Would you say that there’s any particular “nutrient” that you avoid: e.g., carbs, fat, protein? • What do you think of Pollan’s claim that eating should have little to do with science (13)? • Pollan claims that “stepping outside the conventional food system” is now an option. Do you agree that this is possible? (Cf. $)

6. Chapter #1 • What is the rhetorical effect of Pollan laying out a genealogy of today’s views on nutrition? What is the effect of seeing that something taken for granted has a history (20-21)? • Consider the rhetorical power of changing the language of the 1977 Senate Committee on Nutrition’s guidelines from: • “reduce consumption of meat” to • “choose meats, poultry, and fish that will reduce saturated fat intake.” • How significant is it that the meat/dairy industries pushed for the change? What did this language shift do?

7. Chapter #1 • Pollan writes that “you are not allowed officially to tell people to eat less of [a food] or the industry in question will have you for lunch” (24). • Do you think that it’s dangerous (or within the rights of the food/meat industry) to have this power? • Did you know that liable-laws are in place that allow the meat industry to sue anyone who challenges the safety of their products (even after various Salmonella-related deaths)? (Cf. sugar pp. 25) • Do you find it significant that many FDA officials used to work for food product corporations?

8. Chapter #1 • What exactly is “nutritionism” (27)? • What’s the difference between “nutritionism” and “nutrition” as such? • Do you agree or disagree that “[f]oods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts” (28)? • What do you think of Pollan’s claim that nutritionism requires the existence of a scientific “priesthood” to tell us what to eat? • Do you find it significant that Kellogg (the breakfast cereal magnate) helped usher in the practice of eating a great deal of grains/carbs in the morning?

9. Chapter #1 • The history of margarine (32-33)~ • What rhetorical effect does dying margarine pink or placing the term “imitation” on it have? • As a philosopher, I am interested in Pollan’s claim that “the operative nutritionist assumption is that we know enough to determine nutritional equivalence” (e.g., that we can make baby formula that mimics breast milk). (Cf. epistemology, Socratic ignorance) • Do you think we possess such knowledge? • What do you think of feeding animals certain foods in order to boost omega-3 content (e.g., chickens)?

10. Chapter #1 • Pollan’s big claim: • “[W]e have good reason to believe that putting the nutritionists in charge of the menu and the kitchen has not only ruined an untold number of meals, but also has done little for our health, except very possibly to make it worse. These are strong words, I know. Here are a couple more: What the Soviet Union was to the ideology of Marxism, the Low-Fat Campaign is to the ideology of nutritionism” (41). • Evaluate Pollan’s claim! • Moreover, what do you make of his critique of the “lipid hypothesis” and attempt to rescue the reputation of fats (42-49)?

11. Chapter #1 • Pollan mentions that “Americans got really fat on their new low-fat diet—indeed, many date the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes to the late 1970s, when Americans began bingeing on carbohydrates” (50). • What do you make of the demonization of the various fat/carb/protein industry providers by one another? • What about one effect of the edict “Eat more low-fat foods” being that people eat more things like “low-fat” cookies and “whole grain” Cheetos? • According to Pollan, how does the food industry benefit from the above line of thought? What does this have to do with his call to avoid food bearing health claims (e.g., heart-healthy cookies and chips)?

12. Chapter #1 • Would you say that you “enjoy” eating or shopping for food, or is it a source of anxiety for you? • What do you make of the “diets” Pollan discusses on page 56-57 that involved yogurt enemas, grapes, “chewing,” etc? What kind of ascetic diets are there like this today? • What do you make of Pollan’s claim linking food practices to racism on page 57 (i.e., the food practices of immigrants, “mixing,” etc)?

13. Chapter #1 • Pollan writes “as soon as you remove these crucial molecules from the content of the whole foods they’re found in, . . . they don’t seem to work at all” (64). (Cf. the “soul” of a carrot, lol) • What is significant about Pollan’s use of “you?” • What do you think about Pollan’s advocacy for “whole foods,” that is, focusing on the food in-context—seeing a nutrient in the context of food, food in the context of diet, diet in the context of lifestyle? • That is, do you agree with his worries about “reductionist” science, or viewing nutrients isolated from their interaction with the food item as a whole?

14. Chapter #1 • What do you think of Pollan’s suggestion that a Puritan bias lurks at the heart of our eating practices (i.e., that bad things happen to people who eat bad things). That this is why we focus on dietary restrictions. • What do you think about Pollan’s skepticism towards dietary supplements (70)? • Pollan writes that “a far more powerful predictor of heart disease than either diet or exercise is social class” (71). • Is it significant that obesity is the disease of the poor? What links are there here to Marx and class exploitation (i.e., poor working/food conditions)?

15. Chapter #1 • Pollan writes that “people on average eat between a fifth and a third more than they say they do on questionnaires” (74). • Have you ever fibbed about how much you eat? Why do we feel compelled to do so? • How is nutrition science problematized by the fact that we don’t really know what people are eating? • What do you make of the American v. the French “chocolate cake” association test (79)? • What about the desert island hot-dog test (79)? • ~Guilt, psychoanalysis, and viewing fat as a toxin.