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September
27, 2007:
How We Look At The Food We Eat
Interview
with Barry Glassner, author of The
Gospel of Food
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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."
At somethingyoushouldknow.net
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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