That food article

[bohemiancoast]

It's a fine essay. But the thing that most struck me about Michael Pollan's "Unhappy Meals" is when he writes about vegetables. Fruit and vegetables don't make any health claims, they just sit in the produce racks, he explains.

He clearly hasn't been to a UK supermarket recently, where everything remotely green is festooned with five a day advice. Further down of course, is the real heart of this article; the bitter truth that also bedevils the five a day campaign. What is it?

If you want to be healthier, you should eat more green vegetables.

He uses the slightly less loaded term 'leaves'; appropriately for salad obsessed America. But honestly, broccoli, cabbage, green beans and asparagus are all just fine too. Even peas as long as you eat them in moderation.

Comments

[camies.livejournal.com]

I have Pollan's 'Second Nature', which is a fine book.
But a lot of this diet stuff boils down to:
Only Eat Food.
Vegetables are food. Meat is food. Cakes are not food. Crisps are not food. And so on.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I printed it out and passed it round work. It got a lot of nods of recognition.

I had peas in my brown basmati rice today. Just a handful.

[spikeiowa.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with peas?

[nwl.livejournal.com]

He clearly hasn't been to a UK supermarket recently,

Well, being American, I would guess not. Then, when we were last there, I didn't either. I was in a grocery store when we were there before Worldcon several years ago. It was small and crowded, but it was in the city. Suburban grocery stores tend to to be bigger than those in a city.

The local grocery stores have lots of nutrition info in the fresh produce section.

bitter truth that also bedevils the five a day campaign.

I'm confused - you say that everything remotely green is festooned with five a day advice, but don't seem to know what that is. Well, I don't know what grocery store chains are in New York, but I'll willing to bet they share some of the ideas. Locally, Giant Foods has a Five A Day campaign - eat five servings of fruit or vegetables a day.

It does seem like every thing processed is suddenly adding Omega3 to it, even orange juice. It hasn't appeared in grocery stores here yet, but should soon. It will add to the other varieties of orange juice that have different vitamins and nutrients in them. I remember when it it was just Pulp or No Pulp. It takes a while to decide what to buy.