P9: Historical and Modern Food "Advice"

Michael Pollan and Melanie DuPuis address the history of eating and deciding what to eat in the U.S. in their articles “Unhappy Meals” and “Angels and Vegetables,” respectively. Both of these authors analyze what factors go into how Americans decide to eat, both from a historical and modern standpoint. Such factors as nutrition, social culture, and the ever-present fad diet are analyzed, but one thing that stood out in particular to me was something that was discussed in both articles but not as in depth as other issues. This thing was the influence of food industry lobbying on the advice our own government gives us on how to eat. In DuPuis’ article, she explains how a leading member of the League of Nations Nutritional committee’s close ties to the dairy industry led to skewed, if not entirely untrue, information about how crucial high consumption of milk was to a healthy diet. Pollan tells of a senator, George McGovern, who was the leader of a 1970’s Senate committee on nutrition. This committee put out a draft of a set of nutritional guidelines that recommended cutting down on the consumption of red meat, because of findings that lower consumption of beef led to lower rates of heart disease. The overwhelming backlash from the beef lobby led to not only the revision of this straightforward guideline but to McGovern being essentially forced out of office in the next election. The influence of the lobby can be seen in modern food politics, too, as our in-class analysis of food pyramids shows. The food guidelines currently published by the government have a much higher emphasis on dairy than do those published by neutral sources, and it’s not hard to see the connection- the dairy lobby is large and powerful in Washington politics. This ought to raise some major concerns for us as eaters. If the lobby for certain food groups is powerful enough to overthrow a senator or change the wording of a widespread nutritional bulletin, how reliable can it truly be? It doesn’t sit well with me that our government, who we are supposed to view as a trustworthy, legitimate entity, is essentially telling us what we ought to be eating based on who the highest bidder is. It seems that money is a factor in other organizations, too- Pollan points out that the American Heart Association charges companies for its endorsement. What it boils down to is that through money, we are being advised on what to eat by the very companies or industries that rely on us to buy their products to make a profit. This isn’t to say that my own personal eating habits are based on following the government’s ‘My Plate’ template or by which boxes have the AHA logo on them- but it does raise some honest questions about the legitimacy of the food advice we are given by prominent and powerful authorities.