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Beware the Malnutrition of Affluence
Jan. 9th, 2007 10:46 pmBy Professor John Yudkin
Department of Nutrition, Queen Elizabeth College, London, UK
(The essay below was written in response to a request to examine the future path of food and nutrition. It is a tad dry. And a lot of it seems obvious. I think it is worth the read, anyway. If nothing else, skim to the bolded segment and last paragraph.)
*****
One thing is certain about the food of the future. In spite of the almost universal belief that we shall sooner or later be eating pills, we shall in fact have to eat the sorts of foods which need a plate, knife, fork, and spoon. The amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrate which our bodies need every day, with its mineral elements and vitamins, even if pure and dry, weighs something like one pound. This would make up a hundred or so quite large pills, and I doubt whether this is quite what people have in mind when they imagine food in this form.
On the contrary, what is becoming more and more clear is that people will only eat food which is palatable to them – food which is pleasant to look at, to smell, to taste, and to chew. And indeed it is within this context that, before (then), we shall have deliberately to make changes in our food if we are to escape considerable hazard to our health. For the food manufacturer, with all the resources of science and technology, is increasingly able to make attractive foods, with tastes, colours, and textures which we find increasingly irresistible, but which may be nutritionally useless or even undesirable.
( About 750 more words below the cut )
The kicker is that this was written in 1964.
The problem is not that we did not know what was going to happen. As ever, the problem is a lack of willingness to address what we did know was going to happen.
Department of Nutrition, Queen Elizabeth College, London, UK
(The essay below was written in response to a request to examine the future path of food and nutrition. It is a tad dry. And a lot of it seems obvious. I think it is worth the read, anyway. If nothing else, skim to the bolded segment and last paragraph.)
*****
One thing is certain about the food of the future. In spite of the almost universal belief that we shall sooner or later be eating pills, we shall in fact have to eat the sorts of foods which need a plate, knife, fork, and spoon. The amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrate which our bodies need every day, with its mineral elements and vitamins, even if pure and dry, weighs something like one pound. This would make up a hundred or so quite large pills, and I doubt whether this is quite what people have in mind when they imagine food in this form.
On the contrary, what is becoming more and more clear is that people will only eat food which is palatable to them – food which is pleasant to look at, to smell, to taste, and to chew. And indeed it is within this context that, before (then), we shall have deliberately to make changes in our food if we are to escape considerable hazard to our health. For the food manufacturer, with all the resources of science and technology, is increasingly able to make attractive foods, with tastes, colours, and textures which we find increasingly irresistible, but which may be nutritionally useless or even undesirable.
( About 750 more words below the cut )
The kicker is that this was written in 1964.
The problem is not that we did not know what was going to happen. As ever, the problem is a lack of willingness to address what we did know was going to happen.
