What To Eat?

by Natasha Chart · 2009-05-17 08:26:00 UTC
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Light mayo ingredients; by RJL20I seem to have missed* this March web chat with Marion Nestle about her book, "What to Eat" on FireDogLake. Nestle's deconstruction of baffling nutrition labels and straightforward, common sense advice about food, are very helpful.

(Pinching pennies? Preview "What to Eat" on Google Books, perhaps search for a particular question you have to make the most of your sneak peak's page limit.)

Along those same lines, Tristero, who guests at Digby's Hullabaloo blog, recently wrote about Michael Pollan's latest suggestion, "Don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised." From what I've read, I think Nestle, who's an honest-to-goodness professor of nutrition, would generally agree with that guideline. As she wrote in "What to Eat", and as quoted at FDL:

...supermarkets want to expose you to the largest possible number of items that you can stand to see, without annoying you so much that you run from the store. This strategy is based on research proving that "the rate of exposure is directly related to the rate of sale of merchandise." In other words, the more you see, the more you buy. ...

Good times. So do head over to read the chat.

In general, though, it really delights me that the fight against nutritionism is hitting the mainstream blogosphere like this. That's a sign to me that the rebranding of food as a political issue is definitely afoot, and that platforms like Pollan's features in the New York Times aren't being relegated to the 'lifestyle' category in people's minds.

* I had a good reason, which you don't need to be troubled with, for not noticing. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?

(Photo credit: RJL20 on Flickr.)

Natasha Chart
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