Food 101

Did any of you watch Oprah this past week when her show was titled “Food 101 with Michael Pollan”?  Michael Pollan is not a nutritionist; he is a journalist and book author who has been researching food and health for over 20 years.   Due to his vast years of research on the food industry in our nation, and diets around the world, I think he can legitimately be considered an expert on how food is manufactured and how it affects our health.  He currently has a new book out called Food Rules.  His previous 3 books include The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Young Reader’s Edition of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food.  I have to admit I have not read any of his books (yet!), but I am familiar with his research and I did watch the documentary Food Inc. in which he appears.  I was really glad to see Oprah take on the subject of where our food comes from, factory farms versus local farmers, and the fact that how we treat animals and what we feed them has a direct impact on our own health.

At the beginning of the show, Oprah gave everyone a little “food” quiz.  One of the most interesting (and disheartening) questions asked was regarding antibiotic use in the livestock industry: “Americans take 3 million pounds of antibiotics a year.  How many pounds are given to livestock?”  The answer:  28 MILLION pounds!!!  And we wonder why so many antibiotic resistant diseases (such as MRSA) are popping up. 

Pollan noted that there are all sorts of different types of diets around the world (e.g the Inuit in Greenland have 75% of their diet come from fat – primarily in the form of seal blubber, one particular tribe in Africa eats a lot of beef and drinks cow blood, other countries eat high carbohydrate diets, etc.).  The thing these diets have in common is that they are made up of whole, fresh foods and not heavily processed foods.  What else do these people have in common?  They have virtually no incidence of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, etc.  The point Pollan was trying to drive home is that we can eat a variety of different types of diets, but the key to being healthy is using minimally processed foods.  This is something I have really tried to emphasize to my clients as well. 

Part of the problem I have run into in trying to get people to eat more fresh food is the cost.  A lot of people I work with complain that it is too expensive to eat healthy.  According to Pollan, thirty plus years ago, Americans spent 18% of their income on food and nationally Americans spent about 5% on health care.  Today Americans spend only 9% of their income on food, less than any other population on the planet, yet nationally Americans spend 17% on health care.  Between health care and food, in total we are spending about 3% more now than we did in the past.  What does that tell you?  Would you rather spend a little more on eating healthy and in turn feel better, have more energy, and get sick less often; or would you rather have the convenience of buying and eating cheap, heavily processed food but then need to visit the doctor more often to get medications for allergies, insomnia, blood pressure, diabetes, etc.?  We all have to make a decision about who we would rather pay; the farmer or the doctor.  

Oprah also had Alicia Silverstone, actress and co-author of the book The Kind Diet, appear via satellite.  Alicia has been a practicing vegan for the past 10 plus years, and her new book is basically a “guide” of how to eat a more plant based diet including a number of recipes and other tips.  She gave her own personal testimonial about how improving her eating habits improved her health.  She also took viewers on a virtual grocery shopping trip and demonstrated preparing a recipe out of her new book.  Her role was showing that eating healthy does not have to be difficult or take a lot of time. 

Another guest was Steve Ells, founder and CEO of Chipotle restaurants.  Steve is a chef who had a desire to open up his own restaurant when he first finished culinary school.  He now has Chipotle’s all over the country.  Even though Chipotle is considered a “fast food” restaurant, they do not provide your typical highly processed food.  Ells stated that all of their produce is fresh with the exception of corn (frozen), and each restaurant purchases from local farmers when seasons permit.  In addition, 45% of their beans are organic, 60% of their beef is “naturally raised” (meaning the cattle are not given antibiotics or growth hormones and are allowed to graze on grass rather than fed grain in feed lots), and 100% of their pork and chicken is naturally raised. 

Ells opened his first Chipotle in 1993; last year his restaurants served over 700,000 people and had over $1 Billion in sales!  He has shown that you can be successful at using fresh, organic, and naturally raised meats while still providing consumers with a reasonably priced meal.

You can read more about the show, as well as take the quiz, by visiting Oprah's website.