America's Eating Disorder

"The omnivore's dilemma," a phrase coined 30 years ago by research psychologist Paul Rozin, is the basic quandary we all face: As omnivores, what should humans eat when we could, hypothetically, eat anything? In Michael Pollan's recently released book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, the author delves into America's twisted nutritional zeitgeist and discovers that we need to retrace our culinary steps. Then he does the legwork for us by investigating the origins of four separate meals, from a drive-thru McDonald's dinner to one for which he himself has -- not kidding -- hunted and foraged.

In the process, Pollan offers some insight into how it now seems reasonable to eat fast food several times a week, or cut out entire food groups while attempting to lose weight, or, for a frightening number of people, simply not eat. Pollan, author of "The Botany of Desire" and Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley, presents his findings with a crispness and clarity of thought. Transporting food worldwide, for instance, burns fossil fuels and is, in turn, bad for the environment. Consuming too much or too little of anything will not leave you nourished. And eating, by the way, is supposed to be fun.

Krista Walton: In "The Omnivore's Dilemma," you talk about how eating is, in many cultures, a positive act and part of building a community. In America, food is often considered the enemy.

Michael Pollan: Yes, I think we've demonized food. We think about food in terms of evil nutrients and good nutrients, and lose track of the fact that it's a lot more than nutrition. It's a way you build community, it is part of culture, and it helps define culture. To think what it means to be French in the absence of French food, or to be Italian in the absence of Italian food, you'd be missing a big part of [the culture].

The food culture in America was never very strong, but it's been eroded under the pressure of the processed-food industry. They're very interested in changing the food culture, because the food culture gets in the way of eating too much; the food culture tells you don't snack between meals; the food culture tells you eat at a table with other people, not in your car, where [the food industry] is very interested in getting us to eat as much as possible on as many occasions as possible during the day.

KW: You give special attention to the prevalence of corn in the American diet. Is there a critique involved in this?

MP: Yes, I think it's a dangerous way to eat. A civilization that feeds itself from one crop is going to be less healthy long-term than one that feeds itself from a dozen crops. Of course, we don't only eat corn, but corn and soybeans together are the raw material for most of the fast food and supermarket food that we eat. We're omnivores, and we need to eat about 50 different nutrients to be healthy -- you don't get those from eating mostly corn. We have people today who eat a heavy fast-food diet and who are overweight and undernourished. That's a new thing in the history of the world, to be overfed and undernourished at the same time, and a lot of that is because we're eating this mono-cultural diet.

KW: You also discuss how oil-dependent our diet is. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense, but ....

MP: But we don't think about it very often! And that was one of the big surprises to me, as well -- just how much of our fossil fuel consumption is devoted to feeding ourselves. Twenty percent! More than we use on personal transportation! The way we grow the food involves petroleum in the form of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides, the way we process it, and then the way we ship it all around the world. It's a very strong argument for local food, and for eating real whole foods -- not the whole food in Whole Foods, which isn't so whole. [By eating local] we could make a serious dent in all that fossil fuel we're using.