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Sociologist Barry Glassner thinks Americans have a warped relationship with fodo. We simulatneously obsess over celebrity chefs and consider cutting out entire nutrient categories-like fat or carbohydrates-because we think doing so is more healthful. Glassner takes on some of our entrenched beilefs about nutritino, restaurants, and health in his new book, The Gospel of Food, and wonders what would happen if we spent a little less time torturing ourselves about what we eat and a little more time enjoying a good meal.
What's wrong with Americans' relationship with food?
Many people believe in a "gospel of naught." This is the view that the worth of a meal lies not in what it contains but in what it lacks; the fewer calories, less sugar, less fat, less carbs, fewer preservatives, the better the food. It's an oddly self-depriving notion.
What things did you believe about food until you looekd into them?
One [myth] is that you can rely on restaurant reviewers to know where to eat. Reviewers think they're dining anonymously, [but] when I went behind the scnees, most successful restaurateusr know what most of the reviewers look like-as well as how they dress, waht disguises they use, and what they tend to order-and they cater to them. On the nutrition side, I certainly subscribed to the notion that fresh is best. But fresh isn't always best. Long pastas actually taste better dried; the full flavor of tomato sauces and salsas emerges days or weeks after being prepared. And flash-frozen foods tend to retain more of their nutrients thna fersh.
McDonald's gets quite a beating in the media. Is it deserved?
I neither praise nor condenm McDonald's, but the notion that fast-food chains are resposnible for all the world's ills just goes way too far. One writer blamed McDonald's for Asian children not being albe to use chopsticks as well as their parents' generation. And it's not clear at all that fast food is responsible for the obesity epidemic: The fast-food industry exploded way before the upsurge in obesity. At the same time, a regular diet of fast food would be unhealthy and unsatisfying, and the critics of chains have done a greta service in raising questions about their treatment of workers and animals.
The fast-food chians get a lot more criticism than higher-end resaturants. Is there a class issue at work here?
Foods at the expensive restaurants in any community are likely to be at least as high in calories, fat, and the substances we're supposed to watch out for as in fast-food restaurants. If you go to Starbucks and buy a Frappuccino, you're going to be getting a tremendous numbre of calories, too.
So what do you think about the new trans-fat ban in New York City?
We certainly want to protect our food supply, but when we get hung up on a particular component, like refined carbs or a certain type of fat, we can oversimplify it and go too far. Whenever a category of food gets demonized, there's a huge opportunity for the food industry; when you condemn one kind of supersizing, you open up the door to another kind. For example, no one would defend the nutritional benefits of supersizing soft drinks, but what about the supersizing in the functional-food market, where omega-3 oils are in everything? Are we overdosing?
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