How We Look At The Food We Eat

 August 20, 2010

Interview with Barry Glassner, author of the book The Gospel of Food: Why We Should Stop Worrying and Enjoy What We Eat (P.S.)

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Mike Carruthers:
We have a unique way in this country of looking at the food we eat.

Barry Glassner:
The value of a meal lies in what it lacks rather than what it has.

Barry Glassner, Professor of Sociology at USC and author of the book The Gospel of Food...

You know the less bad stuff in a meal (the less sugar, salt, fat, calories), the better the meal. And that's a pretty strange notion if you think about it. And as we keep enlarging that list we keep narrowing what we can eat and what we will enjoy.

In fact if you go back just a decade or two…

Eggs were widely regarded as almost lethal. There were all these big campaigns by food activists demonizing eggs because eggs contain a lot of cholesterol. Even though no study had shown (still no study has shown) that egg consumption causes heart disease - and egg consumption plummeted.

Barry says the result of all this concern of what we should and should not eat is that we've lost all the enjoyment of eating.

And that's very sad because people get more out of a meal, not just emotionally but also physically when the food is a pleasure to eat. And that's been shown in several studies.

Barry says the advice on what you should and shouldn't eat is really simple.

Your mom was right, "Eat your fruits and vegetables, eat in moderation" - and I would add to that "Enjoy what you eat."