Food as Religion

My article on veganism definitely got a few people riled up. My fiance for one, who I have decided that I am going to call Seamus for the purposes of this blog (no, he is not Irish, but I don't have a better name and I'm sick of not calling him anything.) Seamus has always said that veganism was too much of a life-style change for him and that it was a deal breaker. So there was some eye-rolling at my house over that post.

In addition, I had several friends tell me that if I became vegan they could never hang out with me.

Now before anyone rushes to condemn my friends/fiance who are all fine people for their supposed close-mindedness, I'd like to say that food has a way of getting all of us, even those of us who are most open-minded, riled up.

Food, it seems, is like politics or religion. Everyone thinks their worldview is the best one. And, I'm guilty of this too, no doubt about it. Hell, just look at the post on veganism.

Even when we don't moralize (as I try not to do, but sometimes fail) even when we try not to teach, we still secretly in our hearts of hearts think our eating style or our idealized eating style is the best. And we joyously pounce on any news or study that backs up this claim.

Which is easy because there is PLENTY of evidence to back up just about any eating claim.

We absorb pithy aphorisms and then repeat them to ourselves until they become like the laws of gravity. Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. And then when someone questions this, we react as though they are heretics. What do you mean WHY? Don't you KNOW THAT UNPROCESSED FOOD IS BETTER?!!

Several months ago, when I was learning to deal with my cholesterol, I went to the McDougall website to see what I could learn. I still remember reading a forum where someone asked stupidly why he couldn't drink non-fat milk. All the other posters ganged up on him. "Why are you asking such a stupid question?!! This is something Dr. McDougall has explained OVER AND OVER again! Ignore the troll, guys, he obviously isn't interested in Dr. McDougall's eating plan." I felt bad for the guy, and I wanted to know what was wrong with non-fat milk too, but questioning McDougall is apparently NOT OKAY.

So I googled "soy milk" versus "fat free milk" and half of the websites I went to told me that soy milk was terrible and produced by evil people and was likely to kill me and the other half told me that cow milk was terrible and produced by immoral people and also, of course, likely to kill me.

I was genuinely trying to learn everything I could about food and nutritional science so that I could lower my cholesterol, but instead I learned something else. I learned that food is political, it defines us and our values. I learned that, in fact, there is a lot of uncertainty even among doctors about what is best for us and what is not. And I learned that no matter what your food lifestyle is, you can probably find a movement, some prominent people, and/or some scientific studies to back you up.

And then once you have made your lifestyle choice, you will probably be capable of filtering out all the other noise that tells you that your choice might not be correct. Or at least not correct for everyone.

Take this recent article by Mark Bittman where he opines that eating real, unprocessed food is the best food lifestyle to live. Bittman dismisses veganism pretty quickly, or at least veganism that involves processed food. The goal for Bittman is "health and sustainability" and he casually dismisses anyone who thinks that one could have other goals for going vegan or that one could be healthy and still eat veggie burgers or fake bacon. Of baked potato chips versus regular potato chips, Bittman argues:

And whether baked, low-salt chips are “better” than fried ones, is not only arguable — the baked ones are more likely to be chemical-laden — but misses the point which, again, is that real foods are superior in every way.

Of course it is arguable whether baked low-salt chips are "better" than fried potato chips, although baked potato chips have lower saturated fat contents and saturated fat at least has some linkage to higher cholesterol whereas the links to the chemicals Bittman cites are a lot less clear. (See, here I am clearly displaying my food lifestyle values.) But I agree that that's a side point. Bittman's real point is that "real food" is superior in every way.

But what is real food?

Most people don't eat potato chips thinking that they are better for them than some baby carrots. I certainly don't. I eat chips (usually the frou frou pita chips I buy at Whole Foods which don't have many ingredients in them so obviously they are BETTER for me, rolls eyes) because I want a salty, easy snack. Is that okay? I would say, yes, it's okay to have a small snack, but it's not something I want to eat too much of. And it doesn't matter whether I eat pita chips or Lays ... I still shouldn't eat very much of it.

The problem with exhortations like "eat real food" is that we can easily manipulate it to fulfill our whims and agendas. We make chocolate chip cookies and figure we can eat three since they are made from organic dark chocolate and whole wheat. We load up on the cheese and butter in our home cooked pasta. I can't tell you how many foodie "slow food" restaurants I've been to that seemed to serve all their food drenched in butter and cheese and then call their food pure health food. Now again, I'm going to try not to push my personal foodie moralism on everyone else, but I will say, eating butter and cheese is not healthy for me personally.

Now, I'm not trying to argue entirely against Bittman or Michael Pollan the real-food evangelist. I think Pollan is largely right with his motto: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

The problem is ... most of us find eating piles of vegetables BOOOOORING, including one suspects Michael Pollan, whose 36-hour dinner party included an ENTIRE goat. B.R. Myers notes in his recent article in The Atlantic "The Moral Crusade Against Foodies:"

The same goes for restaurant owners like Alice Waters. A celebrated slow-food advocate and the founder of an exclusive eatery in Berkeley, she is one of the chefs profiled in Spoon Fed. “Her streamlined philosophy,” Severson tells us, is “that the most political act we can commit is to eat delicious food that is produced in a way that is sustainable, that doesn’t exploit workers and is eaten slowly and with reverence.” A vegetarian diet, in other words? Please. The reference is to Chez Panisse’s standard fare—Severson cites “grilled rack and loin of Magruder Ranch veal” as a typical offering—which is environmentally sustainable only because so few people can afford it.

Now, I love Chez Panisse but Myers makes a valid point about that free range veal (isn't all veal considered 'bad'?) People in the environmental movement, myself included, often say that free range meat is expensive, but that's how it should be, and people should point blank eat meat less often. But that's pretty easy to say when you can actually afford free range meat as I can. And none of this explains why eating delicious food slowly and with reverence is a political act, let alone the MOST political act. Gandhi committed political acts all the time by NOT eating. Would Waters have argued that instead Gandhi should have eaten some slow roasted lamb?

I say all of this as someone who truly loves Chez Panisse-style "foodie food." I have read book after book by Michael Pollan. And I love Bittman's "The Minimalist" and own a cookbook of his. But the truth is, the foodie religion of Pollan and Waters is simply another religion. Another lifestyle choice. And another way for people to express their own personal values. Do I think there's some value to Michael Pollan's foodie lifestyle? Yes. But I also think there's value to be found in the vegan lifestyle, the vegetarian lifestyle, the McDougall lifestyle, and I think there may even be room in my own lifestyle for the occasional bag of baked Lays.

Because chemicals or no, those things are salty goodness. And I'm not convinced that those are any worse for me than some "real food" foodie potato chip that I am absolutely SURE is being made somewhere in San Francisco and being sold for $9 a bag. And if that makes me a heretic? Well, Pollan, forgive me for I have sinned.