In Defense of Food Part 2

What are the two main causes of nutritional inflation?

"Changes in the way we grow food and changes in the kinds of foods we grow." Research suggests that "plants grown with industrial fertilizers are often nutritionally inferior to the same varieties grown in organic soils." These crops grow more quickly so they have less time to accumulate nutrients and they are rooted shallower; the deeper rooted a crop is, the more nutritious it tends to be.

Refined carbohydrates are incredibly energy dense. How does this contribute to obesity?

"First, we consume many more calories per unit of food; the fiber that's been removed from these foods is precisely what would have made us feel full and stop eating. Also, the flash flood of glucose causes insulin levels to spike and then, once the cells have taken all that glucose out of circulation, drop precipitously, making us think we need to eat again."

Pollan states that "our personal health cannot be divorced from the health of the entire food web." What does he mean by this statement? (Your answer is free to include topics discussed in part one and in class.)

"Health is, among other things, the product of being in these sorts of relationships in a food chain...it follows that when the health of one part of the food chain is disturbed, it can affect all the other creatures in it. If the soil is sick or in some way deficient, so will be the grasses that grow in that soil and the cattle that eat the grasses and the people who drink the milk from them."

If you had to give a TLDR for all the researchers described in this chapter, what would it be?

"The human animal is adapted to, and apparently can thrive on, an extraordinary range of different diets, but the western diet, however you define it, does not seem to be one of them."

What is meant by the term "nutritional inflation?" Describe it and give an example.

"You now have to eat three apples to get the same amount of iron as you would have gotten from a single 1940 apple, and you'd have to eat several more slices of bread to get your recommended daily allowance of zinc than you would have a century ago." We've eroded the nutritional quality of our food, meaning we need to eat more in order to stay healthy.

What is the current average ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s? What was the ratio before the widespread introduction of seed oils?

10:1 is the current ratio. It used to be 3:1.

How does the "Wonder Bread strategy" of supplementation relate to nutritionism? What is wrong with this strategy?

After removing the nutrients from white flour, companies started adding them back in. They'd remove the naturally occurring nutrients and then add them back in synthetically during processing. This is a problem because it ruins the natural relationship between the nutrients and the whole food, which we now know is so vital to how our body processes it. A study done by the University of Minnesota discovered "an additional health benefit to eating whole grains that none of the nutrients alone or even together could explain."

Do you think restricting the diversity in our diet is a bad thing? Why or why not?

By restricting our farming to corn and soy, we end up with a surplus of both. This surplus goes to feeding our animals and into processed foods, neither of which are healthy. Humans are omnivores requiring "somewhere between fifty and a hundred different chemical compounds and elements in order to be healthy." Are we really getting all that we need for corn and soy?

What is metabolic syndrome? How does it relate to the western diet?

Complex of health problems that increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. This complex includes hypertension, hyperglycemia, abnormal cholesterol and/or triglyceride levels, and excess weight, particularly around the abdominal area. Some researchers believe that metabolic syndrome is the root of western diseases/diseases of civilization and that the leading cause of it is the western diet (lots of processed food and meat, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of everything except fruits and vegetables and whole grains).

According to figures from the USDA and England, what has happened to the overall nutritional content of our food since the 50s - has it increased or decreased?

Decreased.

What is the origin of the term western diseases?

During the early twentieth century, there was a large number of researchers who began noticing that a wide variety of native populations (in Africa, in India, Eskimos, Native Americans, Swiss mountaineers, Peruvian Indians, Australian Aborigines, and more) had a complete absence of the chronic diseases that were starting to inflict the west. British doctor Denis Burkitt, who worked in Africa during World War II, officially coined the term.

Two main objections to the theory that the western diet causes these diseases is genetics and demographics. Discuss both of these objections and then give the rebuttals for them.

Genetics: "different races were apt to be susceptible to different diseases; white people were disposed to heart attacks, brown people to things like leprosy." One of the rebuttals to the genetics objection is that "blacks living in America suffered from the same chronic diseases as whites living there. Simply by moving to places like America, immigrants from nations with low rates of chronic disease seemed to quickly acquire them." Demographics: since we're no longer dying from infectious diseases, we're living long enough to die from chronic diseases; "in this view, chronic disease is the inevitable price of a long life." One of the rebuttals to the demographics objection is that the main reason the average life expectancy has increased is due to more and more of us surviving infancy and childhood. "When you adjust for age, rates of chronic diseases like cancer and type 2 diabetes are considerably higher today than they were in 1900. That is, the chances that a sixty- or seventy-year-old suffers from cancer or type 2 diabetes are far great today than they were a century ago."

As early as 1932, Price made the important connection between "the quality of soil and grass and the health of the human eaters." Discuss how these two are connected.

He found that the levels of vitamin A and D were higher in pastured animals and, as a result, in the people that ate those animals. We eat within a good chain, not in isolation. The better the quality of soil and gross, the better the nutritional quality of the vegetables that grow in them and thus the animals that eat them.

Bruce Ames, a biochemist at Berkeley, has a theory that micronutrient deficiencies may contribute to obesity. Explain his reasoning.

His theory is that if the body is "starved of critical nutrients [it] will keep eating in the hope of obtaining them. The absence of these nutrients from the diet may 'counteract the normal feeling of satiety after sufficient calories are eaten' and that such an unrelenting hunger 'may be a biological strategy for obtaining missing nutrients.'" We've built a "destructive feedback loop" into our diet, with the result being that "the more low-quality food one eats, the more one wants to eat, in a futile—but highly profitable—quest for the absent nutrient."

Pollan ends this section of the book by saying, "apparently it is easier, or at least a lot more profitable, to change a disease of civilization into a lifestyle than it is to change the way that civilization eats." Knowing what you do now from this book, class discussions, and what you see in the media, do you think he is right? Why or why not?

I agree because people are just fine and comfortable with their disease rather than actively trying t get rid of hit for them and their peers.

What do you think of the idea that we just need to wait and let our bodies adjust to the western diet? After all, our bodies have adjusted to dietary changes before (remember milk?).

I think that we are probably done evolving, so this will definitely sacrifice most of the population for the future generation, so I think it is a bad idea. We need to adjust.

Why is refined flour "nutritionally worthless"? If it's nutritionally worthless, why did it come into existence?

In making refined flour, you remove the fiber, protein, folic acid, a variety of B vitamins, antioxidants, and omega-3 fatty acids. By removing these things, however, the shelf-life of the flour is increased. It wasn't fully understood at the time that by increasing the shelf-life, you were removing everything that made the flour nutritious. This also became true of corn flour and white rice.

Price described "the problem of diet and a health as a problem of ecological dysfunction." What does he mean by ecological dysfunction?

Industrialization broke "the links among local soils, local foods, and local peoples...disrupt[ing] the circular flow of nutrients through the food chain." The new industrial system "could no longer meet the biochemical requirements of the human body."

Why does our body process sugar found naturally, such as in fruits, differently than sugar found in processed foods, such as soda or cookies.

Naturally occurring sugar "comes packaged in a whole food full of fiber (which slows absorption) and valuable micronutrients."

Consumers of the western diet eat mainly seeds and very few leaves. What is missing from our diets if we neglect leaves? What are we getting too much of from the seeds?

Neglecting leaves, neglecting omega-3s. Consuming too many seeds, consuming too many omega-6s.

Humans drinking milk is a great example of how species can evolve together. Explain this coevolution.

Originally, cow milk made all humans sick when they drank it. Overtime, "the people who lived around cows evolved the ability to digest milk as adults." This mutation was able to spread because those with it "had access to a terrifically nutritious new food source an as a consequence were able to produce more offspring than the people who lacked it." This benefited the cows because they had people to take care of them, which increased their number, habitat, and health.

A large percent of our current population is currently both overfed and undernourished. How can both be true?

Our diet is based on "quantity rather than quality." We're getting enough calories, but a large percent of these calories are "empty," meaning they only provide energy. There have been reports of overweight children suffering from micronutrient deficiencies.

What do we know for certain about the western diet?

People who eat a western diet suffer from higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity, compared to people who eat a more traditional diet. When a person gives up their traditional diet in favor of a western diet, the diseases follow.

Name dietary sources of omega-3s and omega-6s.

Salmon, sardines, tuna. Seeds and soybeans.

In terms of experimental design, what was so great about Kerin O'Dea's experiment with the Aborigines? In other words, how did she avoid some of the pitfalls of nutritional research that we discussed in part one?

She avoided nutritionism by not studying a single nutrient; her focus was instead on "larger dietary patterns." Instead of relying on questionnaires, O'Dea observed the subjects herself.

What is food synergy? Give an example (you can use an example from this chapter or elsewhere).

The various parts of a whole food "act synergistically" with one another. "A whole food might be more than the sum of its nutrient parts."

Price examined several different isolated populations. What diet did he identify as ideal?

There was no ideal diet.

Plants can live off chemical fertilizers. But what do they sacrifice in doing so?

They don't build up their own defenses, which "leaves them more vulnerable to pests and diseases and appears to diminish their nutritional quality."

Name at least four examples of a western disease/disease of civilization.

Type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, some cancers, cardiovascular disease

Modern meat, eggs, and dairy products should be a good source of omega-3s but they no longer are. Why is this?

We feed our cattle seeds (corn) instead of leaves now, so they don't get enough omega-3s and they consume too many omega-6s. You are what you eat.

What are "foods that lie to our senses?"

We have a "long-standing and sustainable relationship" with whole foods. We know when a specific fruit is ripe or when it is spoiled. We use this knowledge to pick the most nutritious whole foods. Processed foods, however, "lie to our senses" by pretending to be something they're not. So it becomes more difficult to assess whether or not something is nutritious.

"The astounding variety of foods on offer in today's supermarket obscures the fact that the actual number of species in the modern diet is shrinking." Why is it shrinking? What two species comprise the majority of our diet? Why do these do species comprise the majority of our diet?

We've started to breed for "high-yielding varieties, with qualities that suited them to things like mechanical harvesting and processing." The two species that dominate our diet are corn and soybeans "because these two plants are among nature's most efficient transformers of sunlight and chemical fertilizer into carbohydrate energy (corn) and fat and protein (soy)." These two crops are going to "extract the maximum amount of macronutrients." It also helps that the government pays farmers to grow corn and soy.

Briefly discuss Weston A. Price's research and his findings.

Weston A. Price was a Canadian dentist who practiced in the early 20th century and started noticing an abrupt increase in tooth decay. He believed this increase was related to diet and not, as was commonly believed at the time, poor hygiene. In the 1930s, he shut down his practice and started traveling to find "control groups—isolated populations that had not yet been exposed to modern foods." He found a large number of these groups throughout the world. He learned that "isolated populations eating a wide variety of traditional diets had no need of dentists whatsoever." He came to the conclusion that there was either something missing from the western diet or too much of something in it that was leading to the increase of tooth decay in the west. He also found that the majority of his control groups diets were "substantially higher in vitamins A and D than that of modern Americans—an average of ten times as much."

What happened to the Aborigines of Derby, Western Australia when they returned to their traditional homeland and diet? What specific biological markers (things that can be measured) changed?

When they returned, they are "striking improvements in virtually every measure of their health." These measures included weight loss, a drop in blood pressure, healthy triglyceride levels, and a dramatic increase of omega-3 fatty acids. O'Dea concluded that "all of the metabolic abnormalities of type 2 diabetes were either greatly improved (glucose tolerance, insulin response to glucose) or completely normalized (plasma lipids) ...by a relatively short (seven week) reversion to traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle."

Industrialization has overwhelmed tradition. We rely on science, journalism, and the government to tell us what to eat rather than culture. Is this a bad thing? Why or why not?

Yes because the government as well as others could be lying or supporting big businesses.