Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Food Is More Than Just Fuel

I have at least two friends for whom “food is just fuel.” One tends to look at the world through a scientific lens, trained in his profession to trust only that which is based on solid, peer-reviewed scientific study. The other just inexplicably doesn’t care, though it may be from living too long in rented rooms rather than a place all to oneself.

In any case, while I freely admit that I give more thought to food – it’s preparation, its variety, its experience, and its ethics – than many in my social circles, I think the “food is fuel” perspective is dangerous, short-sighted, and unnecessarily self-depriving.

Here’s food for thought from the introduction to Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food:

“Historically, people have eaten for a great many reasons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity. As long as humans have been taking meals together, eating has been as much about culture as it has been about biology.”

We are, as a people in modern society, becoming increasingly disconnected from our food. The “food is fuel” is but one manifestation of this. Another being the rise of a generation raised on processed foods. Another is the predeliction of hordes of people who fret, worry, and most importantly, purchase based on nutritional fads and ever-shifting nutritional advice.

Thank God we don’t live on meal-in-a-pill because it sure is evident that neither science nor commercial industry knows enough or cares enough to sustain our health, our cultures & social foundations, or our environment.

Food is more than just an agglomeration of numbers: this many calories, that many grams of protein, this many micrograms of vitamins and minerals.

Food is an intrinsic part of taking care of your body, your mind, and your world. Food is more than fuel: it is politics, economics, values in action, culture, pleasure, adventure, and connection.

Food isn’t just the thing that keeps us alive. Food is an integral part of what it means to be alive – and what it means to be human.