Understanding the story of our food means tracing its path from seed to table. In this clip from the Nourish Video Encyclopedia, author Michael Pollan explains the biology and ecology of our modern food chains. How do you connect with your food chain?
Michael Pollan is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Food Rules, and other best-selling books. Pollan currently serves as the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
Watch additional videos from Michael Pollan on the Nourish website. Stay tuned for more selections from the Nourish Video Encyclopedia, a collection of short films that explore the story of our food.
Nourish is a national educational initiative designed to open a meaningful conversation about food and sustainability, particularly in schools and communities. Explore Nourish at www.nourishlife.org. Follow Nourish on Twitter and Facebook.
Be part of the food revolution. Nourish yourself. Nourish the world.
Nourish is a program of WorldLink, a non-profit organization dedicated to education for sustainability. Heifer International is a sponsor of the Nourish initiative.
Most Americans do not realize they can buy direct from their local gardener or farmer or rancher or Farmer's Market or CSA (consumer support agriculture) or co-op.
If you don't want to grow it and pick it just before you eat find out where the next Farmer's Market is and buy it from someone else who grew it and just picked it.
We need to make it much easier for people to find the sites that offer CSA lists and grass finished meat sites and co-ops. I have a lot of links, but since you don't know me I won't leave them this visit.
Although the clip of Michael Pollan can be taken to indict progress, his basic premise is correct – that our means of processing food outpaces our ability to know the effects of the processing. One that he mentions – fructose – may be responsible for a number of effects being noted today. Robert Lustig at UCSF has been studying obesity in children for some time and points out that consumption of fructose has gone from 15 grams a day in the early 1900s to 55 grams a day in the U.S. today. The rise in obesity and diabetes parallels the rise in fructose consumption that occured when the "fat is bad, carbs are good" started in the 70s. Although there may be other factors for diabetes and obesity, especially worrisome is the rise in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, since fructose is processed in the liver into triglycerides and excess triglyceride build up in the liver cells may result.
A second example that Pollan doesn't mention, but is related to his comment about food humans have had "a long term relationship with" is the excess sodium and inadequate potassium intake Americans have. Unprocessed food, as eaten by early humans, in the vast majority of cases has considerably more potassium and much less sodium than the processed foods we eat today. Population studies have shown the positive correlation of a high potassium to sodium ratio with longevity and reduced cardiac disease and osteoporosis. The evidence is strong enough that the Institute of Medicine has given recommendations of at least 4.7 grams of potassium a day (almost twice the average American intake) and less than 2.3 grams of sodium (about half the average American intake).