Home » Opinion » Book review
Modern farming grows food-like stuff
By Ni Tao |
May 22, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ON a Sunday afternoon almost two years ago, my colleagues and I found ourselves on board a crowded train about to leave for Shanghai from Ningbo, a coastal city about four hours' train ride south of Shanghai.
Our intense mountain hiking a few hours previously had left us exhausted and starving. Just as our stomachs started to rumble, a few thoughtful colleagues offered to share with us some KFC food.
As we gobbled up fried chicken wings and nuggets, a female colleague blurted out that each chicken raised on KFC farms had six wings and four legs.
Upon hearing this, a buddy sitting next to me stopped munching on a chicken leg, his face filled with disbelief.
Even after the train arrived in Shanghai, he could still be heard murmuring to himself: Really? Six wings and four legs on a single chicken?
His horror and confusion are shared by millions of innocent eaters when they realize the goings on inside the modern food industry.
To do KFC justice, the "Frankenchicken" is an urban myth and has been debunked many times, though word may not have trickled through to China yet.
Nowadays people often lament pork, poultry and fish bred by industrialized farming methods taste less flavorful than those "organically" grown, or free-range animals.
In fact, modern farming as a whole has turned our food into things we can only call "edible food-like substances," according to writer Michael Pollan.
In his book "In Defense of Food," Pollan argues succinctly that many types of food, no longer products of nature but of food science, "come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy."
Just like other aspects of our daily life that are transformed by science, how we consume food -- supposing it still can be identified as such -- is now dictated more by self-styled health experts than by conventional wisdom passed down from our parents and grandparents.
Assuming their superiority to "unscientific" life experience, some nutritionists profit by confusing the public and lecturing them on what constitutes a healthy diet, something their audience ought to know perfectly well before being completely misled by them.
As Pollan notes, "the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become." A skilled cook in our family kitchen for more than 20 years, my mother became jumpy only in recent years over her "lack" of knowledge about food science.
I often tease her for making a fuss over changing the way she cooks after she's again been brainwashed by some newspaper articles quoting nutritionists.
These nutritionists are like chameleons and in a day or two their shifts in tones or positions can be revolutionary -- what is good for your health yesterday can ruin it today.
The nutrition pyramid, a measure of how much protein, carbohydrates, vitamin, fat and other nutrients should combine into a healthy diet, has become prime guidance for some on how they should eat. But this pyramid, it should be noted, has been changed and tinkered with over the years by scientists, nutritionists and interest groups.
Food science also casts its spell on many young girls, who often go on radical diets composed mainly of fruit to stay slim.
Had Pollan researched his book in China, he would certainly have more damning details to tell about the modern food industry.
A recent spate of food quality problems has sharpened -- and blunted as well -- Chinese consumers' awareness of food safety.
As a scathing joke goes, Chinese understanding of food additives has been a steep learning curve, from formaldehyde in hot pot broth to melamine in fake milk formula.
So rather than from nutritional science and food industry, as Pollan argues, food needs first of all be defended from its ethically bankrupt producers that know no higher purpose than turning a profit.
Our intense mountain hiking a few hours previously had left us exhausted and starving. Just as our stomachs started to rumble, a few thoughtful colleagues offered to share with us some KFC food.
As we gobbled up fried chicken wings and nuggets, a female colleague blurted out that each chicken raised on KFC farms had six wings and four legs.
Upon hearing this, a buddy sitting next to me stopped munching on a chicken leg, his face filled with disbelief.
Even after the train arrived in Shanghai, he could still be heard murmuring to himself: Really? Six wings and four legs on a single chicken?
His horror and confusion are shared by millions of innocent eaters when they realize the goings on inside the modern food industry.
To do KFC justice, the "Frankenchicken" is an urban myth and has been debunked many times, though word may not have trickled through to China yet.
Nowadays people often lament pork, poultry and fish bred by industrialized farming methods taste less flavorful than those "organically" grown, or free-range animals.
In fact, modern farming as a whole has turned our food into things we can only call "edible food-like substances," according to writer Michael Pollan.
In his book "In Defense of Food," Pollan argues succinctly that many types of food, no longer products of nature but of food science, "come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy."
Just like other aspects of our daily life that are transformed by science, how we consume food -- supposing it still can be identified as such -- is now dictated more by self-styled health experts than by conventional wisdom passed down from our parents and grandparents.
Assuming their superiority to "unscientific" life experience, some nutritionists profit by confusing the public and lecturing them on what constitutes a healthy diet, something their audience ought to know perfectly well before being completely misled by them.
As Pollan notes, "the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become." A skilled cook in our family kitchen for more than 20 years, my mother became jumpy only in recent years over her "lack" of knowledge about food science.
I often tease her for making a fuss over changing the way she cooks after she's again been brainwashed by some newspaper articles quoting nutritionists.
These nutritionists are like chameleons and in a day or two their shifts in tones or positions can be revolutionary -- what is good for your health yesterday can ruin it today.
The nutrition pyramid, a measure of how much protein, carbohydrates, vitamin, fat and other nutrients should combine into a healthy diet, has become prime guidance for some on how they should eat. But this pyramid, it should be noted, has been changed and tinkered with over the years by scientists, nutritionists and interest groups.
Food science also casts its spell on many young girls, who often go on radical diets composed mainly of fruit to stay slim.
Had Pollan researched his book in China, he would certainly have more damning details to tell about the modern food industry.
A recent spate of food quality problems has sharpened -- and blunted as well -- Chinese consumers' awareness of food safety.
As a scathing joke goes, Chinese understanding of food additives has been a steep learning curve, from formaldehyde in hot pot broth to melamine in fake milk formula.
So rather than from nutritional science and food industry, as Pollan argues, food needs first of all be defended from its ethically bankrupt producers that know no higher purpose than turning a profit.
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