Half-cooked musings on meat, human evolution, and economic development

For starters, let me just say that I eat meat, and I like it. Any ambivalence I have about being an omnivore emerges from my understanding of the conditions in which food is produced. So, I agree with NYT food writer and now op-ed columnist Mark Bittman when he writes in his June 2 piece ("Meat: Why Bother?"):

In limited quantities, meat is just fine, especially sustainably raised meat (and wild game), locally and ethically produced dairy and eggs, the remaining wild or decently cultivated fish.

No matter where we live, if we focused on those — none of which are in abundant supply, which is exactly the point — and used them to augment the kind of diet we’re made to eat, one based on plants as a staple, with these other things as treats, we’d all be better off. We can’t afford to wait to evolve.

In explaining the modern taste for meat, however, Bittman calls upon The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse: "When you add 'It’s what’s for dinner' to the equation, you have a powerful combination: biology, economics and propaganda all pushing us in the same direction."

As an anthropologist, I take issue with Bittman's use of the idea of human evolution - and of human "nature":

Once, we had to combine hunting skills and luck to eat meat, which could supply then-rare nutrients in large quantities. This progressed — or at least moved on — to a stage where a family could raise an annual pig and maybe keep a cow and some chickens. Quite suddenly (this development is no more than 50 years old, even in America), we can drive to our nearest burger shop and scarf down a patty — or two! — at will.

Because evolution is a slow process, this revolutionary change has had zero impact on the primal urge that screams, “Listen, dummy, if you can find meat you’d better eat it, because who knows when you’ll eat it again!” At some point our bodies may adapt to consuming unlimited quantities of meat or — a better alternative — our minds will crave less. Right now, primal urge and modern availability form a deadly combo.

There is, in fact, a literature in medical anthropology suggesting that modern health problems like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes result from a mismatch between hunter-gatherer bodies and industrial diets - which S. Boyd Eaton, Melvin Konner, and Marjorie Shostak described in their 1988 article, "Stone Agers in the Fast Lane: Chronic Degenerative Diseases in Evolutionary Perspective."

This has become the basis of popular advice on diet and nutrition, including books like The Paleolithic Prescription and NeanderThin.

"The Caveman Diet," as it has come to be called*, is an example of what some anthropologists might call "paleofantasies."

*The term "Paleo Diet" seems to be preferred among advice mongers, apparently seeking to scientize their regimens.

It is pretty to think that "hunter-gatherers" - a gloss for "natural" humans - were not only closer to nature, but healthier and happier to boot.

I also take issue with Bittman's evolutionism in connection with economic development:

As better-educated citizens of wealthier nations change direction, however, those whose opportunities and privileges have been delayed until now have every intention of catching up, not only by buying cars and TVs but by “enriching” their diet. Remember, it’s our nature.

There is no instinct to buy cars and TVs. Not to mention that the "enrichment" of local diets is as much driven by the supply of the developers (i.e., the wealthier nations) as the demand of the developed.

It is not so much that I want to pick on Bittman, but the half-cooked ideas that he uses to present an otherwise reasonable proposition about eating less in terms of quantity and better in terms of quality.

Modernist Cuisine

Just finished reading The New Yorker's review (in the March 21st issue) of a cooking text called Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Reviewer John Lanchester notes that the text is comprised, in fact, five thick 11 x 13 volumes plus a ring-bond volume of recipes (2,438 pages). The price alone ($625) should clue us to the fact that this is not for the ordinary home cook.

The book apparently describes the science behind cooking, which itself sounds fascinating. After all, cooking depends upon manipulating, for example, temperature and provoking chemical responses to desired effects. Not only does this approach to cooking contribute to, say, smarter stewing, but it also makes possible the presentation of natural foods in forms that seem utterly unnatural to us, like "foams," "gels," "airs", "soils," not to mention magic tricks like "foods that change temperature when you eat them, a cup of tea that is cold on one side and hot on the other," and so on. The approach (and the resulting gimmicks) in Europe has been called "molecular gastronomy" and in this text is called "modernist cuisine."

I think it is interesting to note that even with science shaping this new approach to cooking, it is called "modernist cuisine," which seems to signal a break from "craft" to "art." As a cultural anthropologist, I thought we were living in post-post-modern times? Politically, what does it mean to claim a "modernist" cuisine? For sake of comparison, see this post on The Futurist Cookbook, published in Italy in 1929, which was notably anti-pasta, which artist F.T. Marinetti rejected as reactionary.

What I consider more important to ask: What does it mean - and what will it mean - that this new science / art of cooking emerges at a time when there is growing awareness and acceptance of farmers markets and local foods and "provenance" associated with food (e.g., chocolates labeled with their national and regional origins)?

Last time, I had posted on what I perceived as the elitism of "simple" eating. However, I also appreciated this reminder from Lanchester's review: "There was a time when that emphasis on ingredients seemed quaint; now it is at the center of what chefs do, and it also has had a big impact on the way ordinary cooks thin, shop, cultivate, and prepare food, from the elementary-school kitchen to the White House garden. Perhaps the best thing about this movement is that we can put it into daily practice for ourselves." At least the farm-to-table "movement" - if that is what to call it - makes possible a conversation about what is not fair about food and eating.

I worry that with "modernist cuisine," we are looking at a false sense that science will save us. Like, Green Revolution, anyone? I worry that "modernist cuisine" is the taste of things to come. Notably the further intensification of inequalities.

Harassed, bored, and miserable

Just followed a link to the Web site for a new documentary called "Food Stamped" that I might like to see. The tag line for the film is this: "Is it possible to eat healthy on a food stamp budget?"

I say that I might like to see this film b/c I also am a bit afraid of what the message of this film might be. I say this based on who is being quoted in the blurbs praising the film - two cookbook authors whose sincerity I do not question, but whose relationships with food are not like those of the people who live on food stamp budgets - and based on the Tips that the filmmakers offer on their Web site. Here is a sample:

# Plan, plan, plan – Creating a menu of meals before going shopping helps save you money at the checkout. Shopping with a list in hand also helps prevent lots of impulse buys.
# Buy in bulk – Many grocery stores have bulk sections, where you can get whole foods like grains, beans, nuts, and seeds by the pound. These are often cheaper than buying food in the package.
# Buy seasonal and local – Seasonal and local produce is often times more affordable (not to mention tastier and better for the planet)

Is it just me, or does this strike you as terrifically unhelpful advice for someone who actually might be living on a food stamp budget - which the filmmakers define as $1 per meal? For example, I think we need to remember that planning is a privilege that middle-class folks take for granted. Who else has the time and the assumption that the transportation is available on demand? Who else has the $ on hand to be able to pay a bit more upfront for the bulk goods - which btw, who else has the room to store?

The problem that I see here - and I allow for the fact that the film might be rather different from its marketing here - is that "bad" lifestyle and "wrong" choices are being discussed, yet again, as the culprits. Not the problem of inequalities the shape our experiences with food and eating.

BTW, if the film is rather different from the marketing, then I wish that the message here emphasized the structures that make food inequalities possible - and the institutions that benefit, frankly, from a Fast Food Nation. Certainly individuals have the ability to make decisions, but think about the ways in which the decision, say, to drive-thru McDonald's is made so easy for us.

I also just have to add: In conversations about how and why Americans might not be eating "better," I am struck always by the implication that "bad" lifestyle, "wrong" choices, and "bad" taste go hand-in-hand. In particular, "bad" taste equals what I have heard some college students call "lower class behavior." Which they feel free to say b/c they say that sometimes they do it, too. Which apparently demonstrates the security of their own class position (as not "lower") and at the same time absolves them of being snobs, judgmental, and biased ("class-ist").

To hear some college students talk (as I do in courses on cultural anthropology and medical anthropology), eating fast food is wrong not just b/c it is too many calories and not enough nutrition, but also b/c it exhibits lack of refinement!

Indeed, take a look at the Recipes on the Web site for this film: It smacks of the assumption that if only the lower classes would learn to appreciate how delicious and nutritious and affordable it is to eat "simply"* - like sauteeing a bit of kale in olive oil with garlic, then squeezing a bit of fresh lemon juice on it...

*Simple itself being a bourgeois aesthetic that can be rather costly to achieve: Real Simple, Simple Home, Simple Living, and so on.

The Economist led an editorial on malnutrition (with which I did not agree entirely) with the following:

AT THE depths of the Great Depression, George Orwell wrote of the English working classes: “The basis of their diet is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potato—an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread? Yes it would, but the point is, no human being would ever do such a thing. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man does not. When you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want to eat something a little bit tasty.”

The issue today is not necessarily that people (at least in the United States) are underfed, but apparently not much else has changed since Orwell made his observations.

Post-Christmas tree

So, StraightMan and I took down our tree and put it out at the curb last night. This morning, in the time it took to take Bubbie to his nursery school, the city workers had hauled it onto their truck and taken it away to be mulched.

Shedding its needles like a man in his late 20s can lose his hair: It was time for the tree to go. (Let it be known also that StraightMan has kept his hair.) However. I wanted to hold out for as long as I could: I do not wish for my children to think of me as one of those People who Pack Up the Tree on New Year's Day.

So, I admit that I talked about the idea of spruce butter. Kind of a lot. Did not do it. Wonder whether or not spruce hot chocolate or spruce martini might work?

Then I read this post, which I missed during finals week, on feminist philosophers: "Christmas Trees Not So Harmless."

The post quotes a recent report on a study that finds:

Reminders of Christmas can make religious minorities feel ill at ease — even if they don’t realize it. When people who did not celebrate Christmas or who did not identify as Christian filled out surveys about their moods while in the same room as a small Christmas tree, they reported less self-assurance and fewer positive feelings than if they hadn’t been reminded of the holiday, according to a new study.

Not so surprising, but I guess I thought it is worth reminding ourselves (and with data!) of the taken-for-grantedness of Christian ideas and practices (including public displays and gestures) - and how and why inclusion really ought to matter.

Eggsactly!

Followed this link from martinimade to an eggsperiment to determine whether or not pastured eggs really taste better.

As a college professor, I feel like this account actually might be useful for teaching basic concepts in research methods - like how and why science is based on comparison, what is a variable, the challenges of controlling for x, y, or z, and that engaging in research really ought to be recognized as itself a creative endeavor.

As an anthropologist, I appreciated the recognition that eating is shaped by its context. It really means something to me that I eat eggs from "happy" chickens.

Keeping up with The Times

As though in answer to my post yesterday on The Wellfleet Oyster Diet, the Times today is previewing a book review of Paul Greenberg's Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. Reviewer Sam Sifton, the Times restaurant critic, on his blog, also poses the question of what fish should we eat, given the concerns both that overharvesting in the wild and farming fish both pose.

Four Fish sounds like a terrific read that I plan to load onto my kindle. Featured at the tales of tuna, cod, sea bass and salmon. In book publishing parlance, it sounds like a Michael Pollan treatment, but Pollan himself, in The Omnivore's Dilemma, acknowledged the significant contribution of anthropology to thinking about what and how and why we eat as we do.

Sifton's review itself resonates with me:

In a bite of that absolutely fresh tuna from New Jersey, I experienced a taste of truly wild food, a majestic flavor, something incredibly rare.

And as it melted on my tongue and receded into memory, I felt guilt and doubt and fear. Will my children, who demurred in eating the fish that day, ever have a chance to eat bluefin tuna? Will their children? Will anyone? Should they? What are we really to do with these fish?

I still have the taste of Wellfleet oysters fresh in my mouth. It is indeed an experience that I hope Beanie and Bubbie can come to savor also.