Better May Be Good Enough

Yes, in fact, most people's diets are so terrible that simply eating more real food and less processed food would have positive effects on their health and the environment.

This is one reason why I feel strongly that urging dietary changes should be done with an absolute minimum, and better none at all, of guilt.

We've all grown up having the most atrocious junk marketed to us by people with PhDs in psychology. The typical American works more hours for less money than they would have done in the 1970s. Federal food policy has made soda and processed corn products the cheapest, easiest way to get our calories and supermarkets charge us extra to have food with no poison on it. National retailers and distributors have put brightly colored, barely edible, nutrition-free stuff in front of us at every turn.

The overall effect is overwhelming. And no wonder everyone's sick.

So I'm with Bittman. Local is great. Organic is great. Less meat is great. Less processed is great. But you know, do what you can. If that means just a few more servings of identifiably real food per week, I'll be cheering you on.