Everybody has a philosophy of food. People who say they don’t simply don’t know that they do. Here in the modern world, we are all born, at some point or another, into a political climate that espouses one food philosophy or another, and we are all raised with a food philosophy by our parents; both of these influences profoundly impact our lives.
And it all raises very important questions: what are the “right” foods to eat? What are the healthiest ways to live? What does “good” food consist of? How important is “good” food for one’s overall well-being?
There are many things in philosophy that science simply can’t touch. Science cannot, for example, definitively establish its own ethical framework, and Western atheists who think it can often must face the reality that their own ethical frameworks are typically derivative of Christian values. Science can’t really say what is right or wrong, but it can weigh-in on the implications of various activities.
And food is technically different. Science can tell us things about patterns of longevity, disease, and indicators of risk, which can greatly inform us about what is healthy and what is not. However, this is not the same as saying precisely what “should” be. Moreover, it could be that some incredibly rare plant is the “healthiest” in the world, but is so rare and expensive that most people can’t afford it. Can you really go around telling people that the best way to live is to eat that plant if they have no way to obtain it?
And yet, developing a philosophy of food with real-world effects is critical to health in general. If you simply reject the science that shows how devastating smoking can be to your health and continue to smoke heavily, there’s a very high chance that will affect your quality of life negatively, and quite likely it will shorten your life, too. Yet at the same time, length of life is not necessarily the best marker, and some people who smoke moderately do so socially, which begs a few questions and muddies the waters.
Moreover, while there is a ton of science to back up the negative affects of smoking, it’s much less clear whether white potatoes are more or less healthy than red potatoes; whether saturated fat kills you, or inactivity. There are so many variables in one’s diet, and so few ways to test these in isolation, it is often very unclear what the way forward is.
All of this uncertainly often leads people to jump onto one philosophy or another, almost in the same way people attach themselves to one religion or another. The world is full of uncertainty, influence, special interests, misinformation, and general challenge; it’s very unclear what to believe. There are any number of “diets” to choose from, and on more than a few occasions in the past, people were recommended diets that led to their untimely demise. In general, science progresses, but only through paradigms (see “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”), and it may not shift in time to lead you in the right direction. If you had restrictively specific scientific opinions 100 years ago, you were almost certainly wrong.
I would honestly say that the best way to have a food philosophy is to not take it too seriously. It’s when people insist that they have all the answers that they close themselves off to new information, new science, and new perspectives. Whatever you think you know right now is almost certainly incomplete, even if it is generally correct, and I think a little humility goes a long way. What works for you – and I mean what truly works for you – may not be the best choice for somebody else, depending on their physiology, their access, and their own personal goals. This is true for a lot of things in life.
Of course, this doesn’t mean there’s anything good about throwing your hands up and surrendering to your own habits, or the messages of quacks, who want you to believe that nothing is wrong with the modern diet, and nothing is your fault. You still have to take some responsibility for what you put in your body, no matter what the “food pyramid” might have looked like in the 1990s.
And that’s the other concern: how do you learn the truth? I, for one, do not want to spend my entire life “researching” this shit, at the same time I don’t want to close myself off to learning over time, since there will certainly be new and insightful studies. It’s not clear that what you eat can solve all of your physical problems, but I think it would be a grave mistake to assume your diet can’t help.
This might all sound very vague right now, so it might be a little more interesting to hear what I specifically believe. Right now, I’m at the point where I realize my diet has been pretty bad overall. I have seen, over a decent selection of people, that the skinniest people I know are typically avoiders of refined sugar, and this would seem to match the more recent scientific opinions I’ve encountered that sugar has a metabolic role to play in obesity and weight gain. Historical perspectives seem to back this up. Is this the only factor? Probably not. Refined grains seem to contribute as well. But the direct connection is still unproven.
It’s clear to me that increasing my fiber intake is also important. Whether the current recommendation of daily fiber is “true” or not I don’t know, but the fact that I have historically not even come close to getting 100% is a concern to me, and I’ve heard of studies linking low fiber consumption with a higher risk of colon cancer. My grandfather had colon cancer, so I take this pretty seriously. This would also tell me that increasing my consumption of plants is important, since meat doesn’t contain fiber. Plants are also packed with nutrients that you don’t get from meat, which is not to criticize meat.
On that note, as much as I don’t like it, there seems to be a decent suggestion that a high intake of saturated fat causes issues. I don’t want to take this too seriously, but my diet has been rather high in cheap supermarket cheese. One slice often has 20% of recommended saturated fat, and it’s of course unclear how accurate these “recommended” values are, especially considering they don’t account for the source of these ingredients, but all foods considered, I’ve easily consumed more than 100% of daily saturated fat for a long time, and if I really want to rule this out as a potential contributor to the issues I’ve been having, I’d better have damn good evidence to prove it. I don’t believe that eating fat makes you fat – I think there’s a lot of evidence to support this – but that doesn’t mean that all fat is good for you, so I’m interested in learning more about this and trying to take the science more seriously. If nothing else, I think it’s clear to me that I need to only consume these sources of fat in moderation. Nuts and seeds are probably a better source, too. No seriously, I’ve consumed a heck of a lot of red meat over time, with cheese, and certain milk-related products. Plus, the fact that steak does not give me problems while ground beef does, also makes me very suspicious about how ground beef is processed. It really doesn’t make sense to me yet, but the effect of eating one or the other is super clear. It’s weird.
So, my current philosophy could be summarized by this: more plants, more fiber, less meat, an avoidance of as many added chemicals as possible, as minimally processed as reasonable, and much less sugar. Although organic is probably better from a pure health perspective [i.e., not considering the environment], I don’t think it’s nearly as important as your overall diet. Variety is good, but it’s your habits that define your general health.
[Hey, kind of like money, huh? It’s less the individual things you buy and more your general habits and patterns of spending]
I also have a strong preference for meals that are easy to make. The more effort it takes to make a meal, the less likely I am to actually make it, and this has huge implications for whether I will opt for a healthy meal or an unhealthy meal. If your meals are both healthy and easy to make, you are far more likely to stay healthy over time. In my opinion.
I did want to write about the difficulty of trying to look at the original “human” diet, since this isn’t necessarily the best diet, and is itself representative of a particular philosophy of food, but I think that’s a subject for another day.
The biggest point is: I’m still learning. And I don’t have all the answers. Not for the average person, and certainly not for you and me. But I think I’m on the right track; I’ve certainly started to experience the benefits. But it could be a long road. And I will almost certainly have to correct myself at several points.