Mark Bittman reminds us of this article by Michael Pollan from 2007. “Unhappy Meals,” by the author of Omnivore’s Dilemma, discusses the perilous state of affairs of the US food system, which is unfortunately the emerging model of the world’s food system.
Pollan:
“(Y)ou’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.”
