The Grand Food Bargain by Kevin D. Walker

Author:Kevin D. Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2019-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

Today’s food system did not start out at odds with nutrition. Though the initial 1894 dietary recommendations never mentioned vitamins or minerals, the public already knew that citrus could prevent scurvy without knowing how. Nutrition science would later record the presence of vitamin C in citrus, the importance of minerals like iron to stem anemia, and the value of iodine to avert developmental disabilities like thyroid enlargement.

When vitamins like B1 (thiamine), B3 (niacin), C, and D were documented in specific foods, boosting consumption of foods containing these nutrients became a public health priority. Dietary recommendations included basic food groupings such as fruits and vegetables, cereals and grains. Diets consisting solely of corn or potatoes were deemed insufficient.

Meanwhile, the ability to produce more food than necessary was fast becoming food providers’ biggest challenge. To boost consumption, producers touted the micronutrients in their foods as essential for optimal health and longevity. For a brief period of time, food providers and nutritionists were in alignment—eat more food of greater variety.

This alignment unraveled as additional research showed that all foods were not created nutritionally equal. As American diets fell below targets for key foods, new dietary recommendations specified the number of servings and serving sizes for each food group.

In the 1960s, amid the continuing struggle to rein in overproduction, many learned about hunger and malnutrition among low-income Americans. Public demand to tackle undernutrition in the Southeast and Appalachia provided an opening for simultaneously addressing diseases from overconsumption. But dietary advice that favored more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and fish while reducing meat, eggs, and whole milk meant picking winners and losers.

Staunch opposition from farmers and food manufacturers quickly followed. The subsequent maneuvering marked a turning point—nutrition policy had become a political hotbed. To reduce backlash to forthcoming dietary guidelines, phrases such as “decrease consumption of meats” were scrubbed in favor of sterile reminders to “avoid too much fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.”

The fight over nutrition was a surrogate battle over the direction of the modern food system. Foods loaded with sugars and fats were no longer rare treats, but standard fare. Any recommendations to limit their intake was akin to throwing a wrench into a well-oiled gearbox designed to pump out more and more food.

The result has been malnutrition in all its forms—undernutrition, insufficient micronutrients, and obesity. In a paradox particular to the grand food bargain, overconsumption and malnutrition live side by side in America. It’s all too common for fatty, sugary food to have almost zero nutrient value.

How did it come to this? One answer is that we broadened our definition of food to include anything edible, so long as it did not make us immediately sick. At one time, before the grand food bargain, nutrition and calories were two sides of the same coin. Today, we are awash in empty calories, and eating more no longer means eating better.

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