Just read a couple of articles in the paper, extracts from Michael Pollan’s new book, and it’s set me on a bit of a mission. Basically it was talking about how over the last 40 years the food industry and nutritionists have ‘interfered’ with our diets and perception of food, leading to people being confused about what they should/should not be eating, and to a belief that to understand food you need to be some kind of scientist and that you need a nutritionist’s advice to know what a healthy diet is.

All sorts of food are having all sorts of “nutrients” added to them, and we are lead to believe that they are somehow better for us than fresh, unprocessed food. High in this, low in that, added this and that, pro-something… it’s confusing, nobody knows what it all means or what combination of these things we need to eat to not get cancer, heart disease or a whole list of scary illnesses.

He suggests that the culture of food is changing rapidly. Where once we used to sit around the table and enjoy a meal with our family eating food prepared from scratch we are now happier to eat on the move or in front of the tv, basically anywhere where is consumption of food is quick and has little interaction people, or the actual food you are eating. Driving this he says is “a multi-billion dollar food-marketing machine that thrives on change for its own sake” and “the constantly shifting ground of nutritional science that, depending on your point of view, is advancing the the frontiers of our knowledge about food or just changing its mind a lot because it knows much less than it cares to admit.” So basically in order for the supermarkets and food manufacturers to make more and more money we are made to feel we need their processed, pre-prepared food to live faster, eat healthy and be happy. A lot of food marketing is designed to encourage us to eat in front of the tv or in the car: when we eat mindlessly and alone, we eat more. Its scary. And sad.

It seems the more people worry about their health and let this interfere with their diets, the more health problems they actually have. I am not suggesting that people should just not worry about what they are eating and live on say rice crispies and pie and chips if that’s what they are into, but that people need to realise that they already know how to eat healthily and you don’t really need to be told how to do it.

Basically just “eat food” is the idea. “Eat food” sounds silly, surely that’s what we’re all doing? I’m not sure. Lots of the things being added to basic food like bread, butter etc are not actually food, we know this, but are led to believe that they are somehow better, more healthy with these added extras, or simply do not even think about what is in the food we are eating We trust that the manufacturers would not put things in that are bad for us. It is apparent though that are new diets of processed food are causing chaos with our bodies, and rates of the diseases we are being encouraged to change our diets to avoid are actually increasing. The ‘advanced’ western diet sees much higher rates of obesity, heart disease etc than traditional diets from around the world.

I think I am lucky. Because of where I live I have easy access to a variety of shops which basically don’t even sell this processed food. Most people however shop at supermarkets, and they are full of it. Inspired by Pollan’s article I decided to take a trip down to a local supermarket and have a look at a few simple things to see the differences between what I would prepare at home and what you would buy from a supermarket. “Soup, bread and butter” I thought nice simple things… shouldn’t be too bad…

Leek and Potato Soup (Home Made)
Ingredients: Leeks, potatoes, vegetable stock, butter, maybe a bit of cream if you like it.

Leek and Potato Soup (Shop Bought)
Ingredients: Water, potato (11%), leek (6%), rapeseed oil, split red lentils, double cream, skimmed milk powder, onion, potato flake, modified maize starch, wheat flour, salt, vegetable bouillion (salt, whey powder, yeast extract, glucose syrup, onion powder, flavouring, leek powder, parsley, white pepper, citric acid, celery extract), dried leek, potato starch, leek powder, stabilisers (dip…phates, polyphosphates), yeast extract (yeast, potato starch, salt, yeast extract), parsley onion powder, white pepper.

Bread (Home made)
Ingredients: Yeast, flour, water, olive oil, salt, sugar.

Bread (Shop Bought)
Ingredients: Wheat flour, water, yeast, vegetable oil, salt, flavouring, soya flour, preservative: calcium propionate, emulsifier E671, E481, flour treatment agents, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), E920, flavouring.

Butter (Lightly Salted)
Mine has no ingredients listed, I assume this means it is just butter and a little salt.

“I can’t believe its not butter”
Vegetable oils, buttermilk, water, salt, emulsifiers: mono and di-glyerides of fatty acids, sunflower lecithin, preservative: potasium sorbate, Vitamin E, citric acid, flavouring, colour: beta-carotene, Vitamins A and D.

Hmmm. I know which I’d rather be eating. “I can’t believe it’s not butter”? Have a look on the back of the packet. It is not butter. I have no idea what it is, but it definitely isn’t butter. Hang on though, it has “50% less calories than our regular margarine” plastered all over the packaging, it must be good, and “no trans-fat” – yipeeee, I’m gonna make some toast… but then… from wikipedia,

“Although the manufacturer claims that the product contains no Trans Fat, this may not be entirely true. Checking the ingredients listed on the package shows hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils as part of the makeup. This is because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows food manufacturers to make the claim as long as each serving of the product has less than half a gram of trans fat. In a serving of 14g, this equates to up to 3.5% trans fat by weight. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in April 2006 showed that this and several other spreads claiming “no trans fat” do in fact contain trans fats in what may be considered significant quantities.”

Now I’m confused. I actually have no idea what trans fat is. I don’t really know if it is bad for me. Either way I think I’ll stick to butter. It seems instinctively right that something from a natural source would be more easily processed by your body than something that contains a list of chemicals which I have no idea what the effects of are.

So what is the solution? It seems to me we were better off before all this meddling. Preparing food ourselves at home, from whole ingredients. If you make something yourself you will know what’s in it. Try not to shop at supermarkets, they are full of rubbish and crafty ways of making you want it. Eat with people, it’s fun to hang out with friends, it can improve family relationships, and you’ll take notice of and enjoy food more.

Over the next few weeks I think I might spend a bit more time in supermarkets. I’m thinking of doing some more comparisons and maybe making some alternative recipes to to the stuff you can buy there.