The Political Approach to Weight Management

Well, I have actually said all I had set out to say. My goal was to review the “three-legged stool” of weight management that I learned in my aforementioned class: eating, exercising and self care. So there you go.

But wait! There’s more!

Somewhere along the line, during the months of writing this blog, I saw the movie “Food, Inc.” Now I thought I was a pretty savvy shopper, a pretty “green” consumer and a pretty knowledgeable voter. Well I have to say, this movie taught me a thing or two! I mean I knew the Food Industrial Complex was evil; I just didn’t know how evil...

If you have never seen “Food, Inc.,” run right out and rent it. I’d go so far as to say it changed my life. At the very least, it significantly changed the way I think about food--which is a pretty basic element of life. It will offer you all kinds of information about food that you will wish you didn’t know, and you will curse me, but you will eat with informed consent. You will make wiser food purchases. You will be healthier, and so will the Earth. This is important!

I can’t begin to cover all the information in this movie or any of the books I’ve read since (which I will mention later), so let me just implore you to educate yourself about the food industry and pay attention to what you’re eating and where it comes from. Every choice you make about what to eat makes a political statement. Food is big business. It’s not just about what you put in your mouth: it’s about where your money goes. It’s not just about your own health, but the health of animals, farmers, the planet.

I was surprised to realize what a large movement there is toward “slow food,” sustainable farming and ethical eating. Some of it gets complicated. The “organic” movement has been so successful that the food industry has started to take notice of this quickly growing market, hence the new organic sections at Wal-mart (I’ve never been in a Wal-Mart, so this is hearsay!). This is referred to as “industrial organic.” With organics becoming big business, think of all the acres of agricultural land that is not being treated with pesticides: hoo-ray! BUT, big business has, of course, undermined the whole original concept of organic farming. “Organic” no longer encompasses all it used to. Organic beef does not mean grass-fed beef. Organic pork does not mean humanely-raised pork. Organic vegetables do not mean sustainably grown vegetables. Organic just means without pesticides, and that’s a good thing, but such a small part of the picture.

If you want a very thorough, comprehensive and fascinating account of all of the issues, read “Omnivore’s Dilemma.” I am still plodding through it myself. It’s very detailed, but it’s also sort of the bible of sustainable food. It’s author, Michael Pollan, is oft-quoted in “Food, Inc.”--which is like the “Omnivore’s Dilemma”’s cliff notes--and will be oft-quoted by the end of this post.

I’m also working through the book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by beloved author Barbara Kingsolver. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s an account of her family’s one-year commitment to eating locally and seasonally. They move to a farm and eat only what they and their neighbors produce themselves. I was having a hard time reading it straight through, so now I’m reading it month by month, as it was written. Like “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” it’s very detailed, very informative and very well-written. It inspired me to try to eat as seasonally and locally as possible, although I’m not about to move my family to a farm to do it. (My day job isn’t quite as flexible as hers is!)

We can hardly grow anything edible up here in these sandhills, but I have begun frequenting the plethora of local farmers’ markets much more regularly and checking produce to see where it was grown before I buy it. I also bought three inspiring seasonal cookbooks. I’d never given much thought to seasonality before since you can pretty much get any food any time of year--but how does that happen? The average meal in the US travelled 1500 miles to reach its eater’s plate. If it’s not in season locally, then it must have come from somewhere far away.

Eating seasonally and locally is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and our dependence on oil. Next time you’re fretting over the oil spill, stop and think about how much petroleum it took to get your lunch to you. According to Pollan, “The food industry burns nearly a fifth of all the petroleum consumed in the US (about as much as automobiles do.) Today it takes between seven and ten calories of fossil fuel energy to deliver one calorie of food energy to an American plate.” He says only a fifth of the total energy used to feed us is consumed on the farm; the rest is spent processing the food and moving it around.

It’s not just transportation though. It’s processing and packaging, too. This is where the term “organic” lulls you into a false sense of security. Here’s one more Pollan quote to make you stop and think the next time you reach for that pre-washed package of lettuce and think you’re a “green” consumer because it’s organic: “A one-pound box of pre-washed lettuce contains 80 calories of food energy....growing chilling, washing, packaging and transporting that box of organic salad to a plate on the East Coast takes more tan 4600 calories of fossil fuel energy, or 57 calories of fossil fuel energy for every calorie of food. (These figures would be about 4 percent higher if the salad were grown conventionally.)”

Often it comes down to a choice between organic and local/seasonal. At first I was very stumped by this, but the more I read, the more I opt for local. Since organics have become big business, the regulations to be certified are more demanding, difficult and expensive--and in some cases absurd--prohibitive for many small, independent farmers. But small farms are more likely to grow food in the original spirit of the organic movement--humanely and sustainably.

Let me quote Pollan one last time to sum this up: “ It would...be a mistake to assume that the word “organic” on a label automatically signifies healthfulness, especially when that label appears on heavily processed and long-distance foods that have probably had much of their nutritional value, not to mention flavor, beaten out of them long before they arrive on our tables.”

The more I learned about this, the more inspired and discouraged I got at the same time. I felt both empowered and overwhelmed by all the information. The fact is, we are part of a society that processes, packages and transports its food, and it’s pretty hard to get away from that. It’s just like when you vote: it’s challenging to get enough information to feel confident that you really always know what you’re voting for. And it’s almost as difficult to always know where you’re food comes from and how it was made and what that means. Thankfully, more and more information is available to us, but unless you’re Barbara Kingsolver, you’re probably going to have to compromise a little!

One book that helped me simplify all these issues into some practical decision making at the grocery (natural food, of course!) store, was a straightforward little book called “Sustainable Food,” (which I happened to purchase at said natural food store). Another book which takes a simple and practical approach is Mark Bittman’s “Food Matters.”

I was drawn to “Food Matters” because I’ve been a fan of Mark Bittman’s cookbooks. Apparently at some point in his foodie career, he ran across a report that said global livestock production is responsible for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gases--more than transportation. This apparently got his attention, and he started looking into all these issues for himself, coming to this conclusion: “...a simple lifestyle choice could help you lose weight, reduce your risk of many long-term or chronic diseases, save you real money, AND help stop global warming...”

Bittman develops this whole “Food Matters” approach as an ethical, non-diet way to lose weight. He recommends we eat more plants and fewer animals and minimize highly processed foods as much as possible. It’s that simple. (By the way, his book is full of recipes and menu suggestions if you’re looking for that kind of practical guidance here.”)

So you see, here we have the political approach to weight management. You’d thought I’d gotten off track, hadn’t you? But no, I just shifted to my own three-legged stool approach to weight management: practical, spiritual and political. Now I have covered it all.