Healthier Living with Greg Enslen, 03/27/13: Helping people make small changes that can add up to a healthier lifestyle.
Recently, I have been reading as much as I can on food and food production, trying to gather some knowledge of where my food comes from and how much food production and distribution has changed, even in just the last twenty years. Last week, I talked about the insidious “creep” of salt, high-fructose corn syrup and other sugars that seem to be found in everything.
Last year I read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” another book that changed my life. I’ll do a full summary in a future column, but the book follow four meals from where they were produced to the plate. It was a daunting task for author Michael Pollan, a writer for the New York Times, to “follow the food” back to the source. The four meals were:
A fast food meal, eaten on the go,
A meal prepared with foods from the grocery,
A meal prepared with foods from an organic food market, and
A meal the author hunted and gathered himself.
Obviously, the first meal is much more common in America than it probably should be, and I don’t know anyone who’s done the last meal. But the fourth option is how humanity created every single one of its meals since the beginning up until the advent of agriculture. Sorry to break it to you, kids, but food doesn’t come from the grocery store — they don’t grow it or make it there.
The point of the book is to explore why so many of us have strange relationships with food, and what the food growers and creators, the agricultural industry, have done to the food chain in the past fifty years.
Corn Bombs…
My takeaway from the book – make more of your own food, and try to avoid the “corn bombs” they sell at the fast food places. Buy good, organic, fresh produce, either at a farmers’ market or from the organic section of your local grocery. Don’t buy foods that have been transported from the other side of the planet — just image: how much fuel did it take to fly that mango to you? Talk about a carbon footprint!
I would highly recommend this book if you’re interested in learning where food comes from in our modern society. I also found it very interesting to learn about all of the U.S. Government involvement in the food production industry, and how simple decisions made by the government can have a long-lasting affect on the health and well-being of Americans.
…and High Fructose Corn Syrup
Last time I mentioned HFCS and how it’s making its way into all kinds of different foods because it is so cheap and can be produced from corn, one commodity that is supported by subsidies from the U.S. Government. According to “The Omnivore’s Dillema,” subsidies came about in the mid 1970’s as a way to produce more and more corn cheaply, allowing the country to feed itself and still sell massive amounts of corn and corn products overseas.
High Fructose Corn Syrup was invented in 1957 and became available on an industrial scale in 1965, quickly replacing sucrose in the food industry. HFCS now appears in many processed foods, including breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments.
One thing I forgot to mention about HFCS last time is the calorie load that comes with such a highly-concentrated form of sugar: regular table sugar (half fructose, half sucrose) has 46 calories per tablespoon, whereas HFCS has 53 calories, and those additional calories add up. And because HFCS molecules aren’t paired equally between the two types of sugars, they are easier to metabolize and enter the bloodstream faster than regular table sugar.
About the Column
This column is not about “healthy” living but “healthier” living, which is more attainable. Send feedback or questions to healthier@gregenslen.com or use the “Contact” page on Greg’s website. Greg is a Dayton-based writer interested in improving his overall health. But he’s not a doctor, so for real medical advice and direction, consult a physician.
