Tag Archive for: Michael Pollan

Mystery Ingredients

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One of the oft-repeated comments by many nutritional experts goes something like this: “If you can’t say it, don’t eat it.” A further expansion of that is “If there are ingredients you don’t recognize on the nutrition label, don’t eat that food.”

The idea is that the longer the list of ingredients with more difficulty to pronounce the names, the more likely it’s highly processed and could be an ultra-processed food. I understand that concept, so let’s test it out. I’ll stick to the list of ingredients.

Guess the Mystery Food

The serving size is 3.3 ounces. Ingredients: Sugar (fructose, glucose), ascorbic acid, phylloquinone, homogalacturonans and rhamnogalacturonans, hemicellulose, betaine, cyanidin-3-galactoside

beta-cryptoxanthin, chlorogenic acid, coumaric acid, caffeic acid, phloridzin, and ash. (I didn’t include every ingredient.)

How many could you pronounce? How many did you recognize? Sugar, for sure. Probably ascorbic acid as a preservative, another name for vitamin C. But the rest?

What you’re looking at is the ingredients in an apple—if they actually put the ingredients on the label of apples. Those are the names of the fibers, prebiotics, and the phytonutrients found in just about every type of red apple. I think we should probably eat more of them whether we can pronounce the ingredients or not.

The Bottom Line

I’m not discounting the advice attributed to Michael Pollan about pronouncing ingredients, but oversimplification isn’t the answer either. They just become talking points for media gurus and wannabe influencers. Much of the time they get it wrong. Remember the ruckus about maltodextrin? They want to get noticed to get more clicks. The truth doesn’t always matter.

Their true challenge is to prove that any ingredient deemed as “Generally Regarded As Safe” is not—not with testimonials or research on animals, but with research that connects ingredients with disease. That would be helpful. Otherwise, it’s just tangential commentary that serves only the purpose of the person doing the talking.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Why You Should Get “Cooked”

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While Paula and I were visiting our son and his wife last week, I suggested that all of us watch a series on Netflix called “Cooked”; it’s a series written by Michael Pollan from the book of the same name. I talked about him early last year and his movie “In Defense of Food.” I had read the book and watched the series earlier, and although Paula doesn’t generally like how-things-are-made programs, she watched a couple of minutes with me and ended up going to bed an hour late.

Each major chapter of the book has been made into a segment that lasts about an hour. The titles define the topic as it relates to cooking: fire, water, air, earth. Each one has been crafted to provide a little common-sense science along with interesting stories and background. I loved the book and now I love the series; the family did as well.


“Cooked” Insights

The series is full of revelations that seem obvious in hindsight, but that you’ve probably never thought about before. Like cookware: humans couldn’t effectively combine the flavors of various foods until a pot was invented that could withstand the heat of the cooking fire. No pot? No boiling. No soup, no stew, no sauces.

And did you know there’d be no chocolate without fermentation? Paula was surprised to learn that about one of her favorite foods.

A thread that ran throughout the series was this: the key role of sharing a meal in the process of human bonding. Mute the phones and leave them in your pockets; spend mealtime loving the ones you’re with. Unless you’re a doctor on call, all those messages will wait.


The Bottom Line

Watch this series on Netflix; you’ll learn more about meat and vegetables and how they’re transformed into food than any other place I can think of. You’ll have a great time learning, and I bet it will change your thinking about food. Paula insisted I warn you that a few scenes in “Fire” are tough to watch, but we’re grown-ups and we need to face the truth about where meat comes from. If you’re watching with your kids (which would be really great), you may want to pre-screen that segment.

My favorite story? The nun with a PhD in microbiology who makes cheese. You’ll begin to understand the microbiome more clearly after you see the “Earth” segment.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet