Who eats for health?

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Abstract
Health foodists believe and behave in opposition to the culture in which they were raised. They are able to maintain their opposition because they receive strong reinforcements: a sense of community, a shared (counter)culture, and a feeling of well-being. Their beliefs are as unscientific as those of the rest of us perhaps; it seems unlikely that rational arguments will sway them. Health foodists say that they distrust professional nutritionists not because they do not trust their scientific knowledge, but because they are perceived as speaking for the food industry rather than for health. If nutritionists want to convince health foodists of the merits of manufactured foods and the dangers of health foods, learning the language of the counter culture is not enough, nor is it relevant to “prove” that one of the famous health food authors is “wrong” (18, 19). If it is important for nutritionists to communicate with health foodists, perhaps the first requirement is to listen to what they say. To the food industry they say that it is ironic and tragic that our food technology has been used to develop, produce, and market gimmicks rather than solve the real nutritional problems of a world in which two-thirds of the people are only a small step away from starvation. To nutritionists they say that a healthy diet is not a formulation of chemicals containing what we currently think are minimum daily requirements of nutrients, but a judicious choice of “real” foods. To all of us they say: What has man wrought? These statements cannot be easily ignored. It has not been my intention to demonstrate again that although this country is probably the richest nation on earth, it is not the healthiest. My aim has been to explore the motivations of a small but growing minority who believe that food should be more than safe, and who are willing to expend energy and expense to obtain food which they consider healthy. The traveler who carries food and water because he does not trust what others eat and drink, may be overly cautious, but not foolish. Health foodists are among those who feel a need to react to what they perceive to be an overly and short-sightedly manipulated environment. Health foodists question what may well need to be questioned. Health foodists reaffirm an age-old truth: that food is needed for health. Perhaps one-half the world’s population needs to be concerned above all else with getting enough to eat. In our island of affluence we need not be concerned with food for sheer survival, but have we not squandered our riches on a profusion of foods for convenience, losing sight even of food for health? The perhaps apocryphal, but not improbable, ultimate convenience food is the Compleat Pellet—a manufactured, compressed, total food, the human equivalent of chicken and cattle feed. Health foodists and I hope we can avert that disaster.

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