In Defense of Food

More and more people are developing new food products made in home kitchens that are free from artificial additives. But to distribute their products further away than the local farmers’ market, they need to find ways to prevent them from spoiling during shipping or on a store shelf. That’s the challenge Eric Glandian faced with Zen Monkey, a new breakfast food.

We thought the vegetarian dinner Carmen Sabaté made the night we filmed her family was so delicious (the Sabaté’s generously fed the whole crew after we finished) that we asked her to do a quick on-camera demo so that we could all learn some of her secrets. Now you can too!

More than 90%of the nation’s broccoli is grown in California, because its sunny days and cool desert nights are perfect for the vegetable. But if you live in the East the broccoli you buy is likely to be a week old. So Cornell’s Thomas Bjorkman is trying to breed new varieties that will thrive in the east. His goal: fresher, better-tasting local broccoli that will entice more people to eat it.

Michael Pollan offers some practical tips for navigating supermarket aisles, where prominent health claims adorn so many packaged products. Though this attention-getting strategy has been effective in boosting sales, the profusion of health claims has fostered confusion about food and health. And the actual health benefits of these products are often questionable at best.

Public awareness of the health risks of sugary sodas has been growing. But proposals in California and New York to reduce soda consumption by taxing it or limiting its serving size were both defeated after the soda industry spent millions to fight them. But Mexico has passed a soda tax, and the city of Berkeley, California recently did too. Will measures like these prove to be effective?

Food manufacturers have long used the latest scientific theories about food, many of them badly flawed, to sell their products. The Kellogg brothers’ invention of corn flakes stemmed from the mistaken belief that eating protein foods for breakfast made people sick. And by adding vitamins, manufacturers sold us everything from beer to white bread as if they were health foods..

In the Bay Area’s Bigger Picture Campaign, young poets like Erica McMath Sheppard are collaborating with health care workers to raise awareness about the links between unhealthy diets and rising rates of type 2 diabetes. In her poem "Death Recipe" she acknowledges the power of junk foods in her own life and reveals the tragic toll diabetes has taken on her family.

Brian Wansink is an expert on how things to which we don’t give the slightest thought—such as the order in which we see foods—influence our choices. By studying buffets and cafeterias, he’s found that we tend to load most of our plates with the first foods we see. So he is working with schools to re-design lunch lines so kids see the healthiest foods first—with very impressive results.

11 year-old Anthony Scavotto and his family are alarmed that in just one year he's gained 30 pounds. Rising obesity among American kids is making them susceptible to type 2 diabetes, which used to be very rare in children. With the help of Boston pediatrician David Ludwig, Anthony gets his weight under control—simply by changing the kind of food that he eats.

You might never connect the size of your plate with how much you eat. But Cornell University’s Brian Wansink has found that using a smaller plate can help you overcome the temptations of overeating. He uses a clever trick to get people to serve themselves the same dish twice on slightly different sized plates. When they use the smaller plate, without realizing it, they almost always take less.

Proposals that the government should regulate sodas and junk food and encourage healthier eating arouse bitter controversy. But the fact is that the government is already deeply involved in shaping what we eat, through policies that help determine the kind of food we raise on our farms. So the real question is not whether to bring in the government, but whether its direction should be changed..

Our ancient ancestors ate lots of green plants, grazing meat animals and fish, all of which are good sources of a class of fats called Omega-3s that are essential for the health of our hearts and our brains. But the processed food and grain-fed meat we eat today gives us a lot fewer Omega-3s. Instead, we're eating a lot more of a class of fats called Omega-6s that may be interfering with Omega-3s.