NYTimes Opinion: Is 'Eat Real Food' Unthinkable?

While I do not trust and promote all NYTimes articles, I do like to browse them, read the ones I find interesting then research a bit more on their info. If I find proof or discrepancies I'll post about them here for you all to take into consideration.


One of the latest is Mark Bittman's opinion on the new 'Eat real food' U.S.D.A. promotion. Mark Bittman has long been a chef, food critic, and nutritionist voicing his opinion around the states. I do respect his work and found his opinion quite eloquent. The following is not a review of his article but rather a few points I wanted to call out to everyone. (after the jump)

What the heck is in Crisco anyway?

Bittman begins by noting the irony in the new food recommendations: "The problem, as usual, is that the agency’s nutrition experts are at odds with its other mission: to promote our bounty in whatever form its processors make it. The U.S.D.A. can succeed at its conflicting goals only by convincing us that eating manufactured food lower in SOFAS is “healthy,” thus implicitly endorsing hyper-engineered junk food with added fiber, reduced and solid fats and so on, “food” that is often unimaginably far from its origins."


So what do we eat? As Michael Pollan pointed out, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Eating REAL food, not the processed stuff is key--which also means cooking more at home. He comments on Oprah's push to try veganism for a week. But notes that Coke, Tostitos and Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs — yum! — are all vegan. Bittman ends with the take home message "The truly healthy alternative to that chip is not a fake chip; it’s a carrot. Likewise, the alternative to sausage is not vegan sausage; it’s less sausage." Eat REAL, eat whole foods grown local from the earth. And, LET YOUR FOOD BE YOUR MEDICINE, YOUR MEDICINE BE YOUR FOOD!