If You Can't Pronounce It...

The following message is common on the Internet, especially in social media.

Michael Pollan, a food writer and activist, wrote for a 2008 NPR story: “Don’t buy products with more than five ingredients or any ingredients you can’t easily pronounce.”  Other activists like the “Food Babe” website are spreading this easy-to-remember but simplistic idea, using fear and bad science to condemn any food or additive that sounds harmful, artificial or synthetic.

Just to test the notion, would you like to eat a food containing: cholecalciferol or tocopherol or phylloquinone?  How about pyridoxine?  Trick questions – they are also known as vitamins D, E, K and B6.  Everyone gets some of each daily in food or taken in those tablets we believe will make us healthier.  Most of the time these and other vitamins have been produced synthetically.  (They can’t get all that vitamin C added to cereals, drinks and lozenges by just grinding up fruits and vegetables.)

The idea that you shouldn’t eat what you can’t pronounce is absurd.  If that were the case and they decided to call azodicarbonamide “delta 3” instead, no one would know the difference or care – problem solved!  Well-educated and respected experts agree.  Take this story I found on Bestfoodfacts.org.  Robert Gravani, PhD, a food scientist professor at Cornell University, confidently debunks this craziness.  There is nothing to fear.  As he puts it, "In many cases, additives improve our health."

So what of all the warnings about evil corporations trying to poison us with chemicals?  The New York Times ran a profile on the author of the Food Babe website.  “Sometimes she finds an ingredient, often an ugly-sounding chemical (propylene glycol, which she said was in beer), and finds a secondary industrial use (antifreeze) for it.”  But this example is not true and indicative of her lack of scientific training and understanding.  “Dr. David H. Gorski, a surgical oncologist who also has a degree in chemistry, wrote on Science-Based Medicine that the beer ingredient is propylene glycol alginate, which, despite its name, is not even close to propylene glycol, is not antifreeze and is derived from kelp.”  The chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida described her message as “abject food terrorism,” adding:  “She found that a popular social media site was more powerful than science itself, more powerful than reason, more powerful than actually knowing what you’re talking about.”

Other websites contain long lists of where she got it wrong, but that does not slow down the pure-food crusade backed by an estimated 3 million followers.  They can band together to use their economic power to force unnecessary changes on the rest of us.  See this news article from late last month announcing:  “A number of major fast-food chains and food companies have recently announced healthier practices, moving to all-natural ingredients and ending the use of downright strange and sometimes hard-to-pronounce additives.”  They list specific examples including:  Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Panera, Dunkin Donuts, Kraft, Coke, MacDonald’s and others.

That story claims: “Experts say these latest moves represent a real effort to make food both healthier and better for the environment, while also tapping into the growing consumer demand for more natural products.”  But the first assertion is not the case!  Experts don’t worry about how easily pronounced the ingredients are.  It’s obvious that the writer is either too lazy to research the facts or has handpicked the “experts” to match a preexisting agenda.

The second part is true.  Corporation are changing their practices and ultimately passing the costs to us, the consumers, based on demand for changes driven by the often erroneous warnings by unqualified, self-appointed watchdogs, who profit from the fear and misinformation they spread.  Followers of such dietary fear-mongers line up like sheep, desperate for hope or looking for easy answers.  And the rest of us are forced to accept the new standards.  That is what’s really scary.

Tell Us Something We Don't Know

A recent report from Health Day tells us about new research on healthy eating.  Results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association and revealed that “home cooking is better than restaurant fare, and that kids who are offered more nutritious food in school cafeterias rarely eat it.”  This is not exactly earth-shattering news.  It seems more like stating the obvious and backing it up with a couple of studies, however, the conclusions should be “viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.”  That means they will not be sure until someone else has duplicated these studies and found similar results, but it makes perfect sense based on experience.

First, the idea that eating out rather than at home can be the healthier choice flies in the face of everything we have been hearing for the past decade.  The government has both pressured and required restaurants to post calorie counts and other information on the menu to give diners a chance to consider their options.  The Internet is filled with tricks and tips about how to eat healthy when away from home, strong evidence that it can be the less healthy option.  Here's a list of tips from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that was reviewed two years ago, which implies that it was out for longer.  It lists activities for preparation, choosing a restaurant, ordering and recommends eating more slowly to avoid overeating.  Restaurants present more choices, more food and the enticement of a dessert – you don’t even have to get up to get it.

The potential dangers of eating too many meals at restaurants have been discussed for many years.  The healthy eating advocates and others have been encouraging more meals at home, especially more meals as a family, for several reasons including this one.  Unless you are very careful, too much restaurant eating leads to excessive weight gain (and it’s more expensive, too).  It’s not like this is a surprise.

Next we hear another example of how the government can’t legislate behavior.  When the government dictates menus to schools, in effect telling kids what they must eat, the kids will avoid or ignore it.  In my personal experience I’ve talked to a couple who volunteered to help feed the “food insecure” children in a summer program.  The program had to follow certain nutritional guidelines, but after the meal the trashcans were full of unopened vegetable cups.  In another case, a mother complained about having to give her daughter enough lunch money to buy two lunches because the girl found a single serving was not sufficient.  These may be single observations, anecdotal evidence, but I’m not surprised to find that it appears to be a universal problem.

Again, lots of experience tells us that it’s a challenge to get kids to eat their vegetables.  Some scholars even argue that it’s the result of ancient genetic programing for survival in case the green stuff is poisonous.  Left unsupervised (or un-nagged) most kids will figure out a way to dispose of the dreaded vegetables.

Thanks to the American Public Health Association we now have research to confirm (pending peer review) what we already knew and observed for many years.  Healthy eating is about behavior for both children and adults.  Researchers can publish studies telling us what we already know and government agencies can institute regulations, but any real and lasting behavior change must come from individuals who are motivated to change.   Until that happens, we will continue to get the same results in terms of overweight and unhealthy citizens.

Restaurant Menu Issues Demonstrate My Point

Last time I reinforced the need for critical thinking by pointing out the dubious value of self-reporting surveys.  Whether they be about politics or personal habits, they tend to be an inaccurate reflection of actual choices and behavior.  I wonder why news agencies spend so much time on them.  Here is an article that reinforces that point and goes on to give good examples of conflicts within the other four dimensions as well.  It’s about healthier menu choices in restaurants.

The  report begins, “while 47 percent of Americans say they'd like restaurants to offer healthier items like salads and baked potatoes, only 23 percent tend to order those foods…” Since the information comes from different surveys, we must be careful, but the general behavior, if not the specific percentages, is confirmed by sales figures presented later in the report, so again there seems to be a large discrepancy between stated preference and actual behavior.

Further along they remind us that, “the government has stepped up its oversight — and influence — over the industry that it blames for America's expanding waistline.”  This blatant admission that the government does not blame people for eating the wrong foods but blames the industry leads the government to seek solutions by regulating restaurants instead of expecting personal responsibility to change behavior.  When they find out this requirement of listing calories and offering more healthy choices is not working, what is their next option?  How do they escalate when they don’t trust us to do the right thing?  Next logical steps, as I stated in earlier articles, would be increased threats to our freedom, perhaps minor in this case, but where would it end?  As this controlling philosophy remains predominant in the minds of our government, they will feel justified in regulating away all of our choices.

Later the report cites the efforts of a couple of restaurants to conform to the regulations.  Omitted is the reminder that in one way or another we are paying for the additional food preparation, research and reprinting of menus; but as we are strong in economic understanding, we are aware of this.  Like any other attempt to solve a behavior problem by attacking symptoms with regulations, it inevitably leads to higher costs for the public – not unlike the additional fees that came on the heels of consumer credit card protection – but it does not solve the problem.  Most Americans and the government have yet to learn the main lesson of economic understanding - added costs are passed on to the consumer.

Finally, why don’t people choose the healthy menu items?  Examples in the report show as reasons:  peer pressure and that “[h]ealthier foods also are usually among the most expensive menu items, which can be tough for recession-weary customers…” Both relate to perspective, overly caring what other people think and not looking at the long-term effects of today’s decisions.

All this effort and regulation tries to solve a problem (unhealthy eating) brought on by behavior (a failure in discipline).  This single article, read from a behavioral standpoint, reinforces my point that weaknesses in the five key dimensions are the root cause of most of our contemporary crises and therein lie the solutions, not in any outside programs or government interventions no matter how well-intentioned.