Eat his words - Unhappy Meals

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:35 PM EST

Article Source: Roots and Grubs

entertainment, home-garden, food, cooking, michael-pollan, nutritionism, food-fads

The cover story in today's New York Times magazine is a landmark piece by Michael Pollan called Unhappy Meals. I think it's the best thing he's ever written, possibly because it speaks so eloquently to my own prejudices.

Here's the short version: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

But the meat of the article, so to speak, is an attack on what Pollan calls "nutritionism": the ideology that holds that the best way to a healthy diet is to ignore foods and concentrate on ingesting the proper amounts and ratios of nutrients lurking within them. This has led to many absurdities, like this one:

Published to:

Michael Sautter's Column, All of Newsvine
Groups: Foodies!, GMO Vine, Nutrition
Regions: United States

What's this?

Who's leading the conversation?

This visualization below allows you to see the impact that each user has on the current conversation. The top row contains the group of users who have had the most impact, the 2nd row the group of users who have had the 2nd most impact (et cetera). Users with similar impact are grouped together, and the average score of the group is shown to the left of the group. The author of the article is also shown on the left, in their corresponding group. Each user's score is based on the number of comments the user has made plus the number of votes their comments have received. The scores are calculated relative one another, so while their absolute value is not particularly important, their relative difference does indicate a larger difference in impact on the conversation.

4.3

{"commentId":499567,"authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

Michael Sautter

I like real food that comes from Mother Nature
and I try and avoid crap that comes out of man's
chemical labs and factories.

{"commentId":499567,"threadId":"71741","contentId":"541571","authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

2 votes

#1 - Sun Jan 28, 2007 2:59 PM EST

{"commentId":499569,"authorDomain":"LAUHAL63"}

lauhal

Nice seed. The link to the Unhappy Meals article is excellent...and long. I've bookmarked it to read in detail later.

{"commentId":499569,"threadId":"71741","contentId":"541571","authorDomain":"LAUHAL63"}

2 votes

#2 - Sun Jan 28, 2007 3:01 PM EST

{"commentId":499580,"authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

Michael Sautter

Yes the link is good, it explains nicely how the Nutritionistas, agri-business and journalism together have created the public focus on nutrients on labels instead of just eating food.

{"commentId":499580,"threadId":"71741","contentId":"541571","authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

2 votes

#2.1 - Sun Jan 28, 2007 3:10 PM EST

{"commentId":499665,"authorDomain":"melonhead"}

urbane gorilla

I ran out to buy the Sunday NYT - too late - will lounge about at my local library reading it tom'w.

{"commentId":499665,"threadId":"71741","contentId":"541571","authorDomain":"melonhead"}

2 votes

#2.2 - Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:23 PM EST

{"canLink":false,"threadId":"71741","isPrivate":false}

MICHAEL SAUTTER

Backyard

Eat his words - Unhappy Meals

Published to:

FUN STUFF:

COMPANY STUFF:

LEGAL STUFF: