Food Rules: An Eater’s Handbook by Michael Pollan (New York: Penguin, 2009)

Michael Pollan might be saving more lives than the FDA but he is dancing around a big issue: the role of multinational corporations in poisoning America’s food supply.

In his new book, Food Rules, Pollan argues that highly processed foods – “edible foodlike substances” – are a leading cause of chronic illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease among Americans. He attributes the health problems and deaths of millions of people to clever marketing campaigns that push an endless supply of processed foods onto a naïve public (17,000 new food products are rolled out every year by corporations with huge advertising budgets). Why aren’t government regulators protecting the public from these deadly foods? In a recent video, Pollan said that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is controlled by corporations.*

Don’t hold your breath for food reform. This month the floodgates were opened to corporate spending on elections when the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same constitutional rights as individual persons. It’s doubtful that Congress will overhaul FDA regulations that currently allow corporations to poison the nation’s food supply with hundreds of thousands of tons of “edible foodlike substances.” If they tried, corporate-funded attack ads during election season would defeat any candidate who dared to stand up to them.

I realized how easy it was to get tricked by corporate food poisoners when I checked my refrigerator for “edible foodlike substances.” There they were. Hiding in plain view. The worse one was Yoplait GoGurt. It’s a plastic tube filled with sugar, salt and chemicals posing as yogurt. Pollan argues that the Western diet of processed foods is dangerous because of the proliferation of sugar, salt and chemicals in nearly every type of food we eat. He asks: Do we really want corporations to cook for us?

The challenge we face is learning how to identify real food from fake food. It’s a David and Goliath battle. Every year corporations pour billions of dollars into ads to convince us to eat their fake food to increase their real profits. Ironically, the “healthy” trend of eating low-fat or non-fat foods is actually making Americans fatter because corporations have increased the percentage of sugars and carbohydrates in these foods to make up for the lack of flavor that results from reducing fat content.

Michael Pollan has taken on the fat-cats. He wants us to take responsibility for our health by eating real food. But the battle with the corporations that are poisoning the nation’s food supply still looms in the distance. The battle with the tobacco industry was nothing compared to the one we must fight with Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto.

What the hell! I love a good food fight.

* http://fora.tv/2010/01/23/Michael_Pollan_on_Food_Rules_An_Eaters_Manual