Glassner's Gospel of Food

The Gospel of Food
(Everything you think you know about food is wrong)
Barry Glassner

(Ecco, 2007, 285 pp; $25.95)


It is probable that Glassner must have had some heated exchanges with his editor and publisher over the book’s title, motivated, no doubt, to spark interest and sales. It is also possible he was a willing conspirator. Unfortunately, it does somewhat diminish his credibility on his avowed objective, which is to stimulate a critical attitude toward commonly held beliefs (and myths) about food. To promote one’s own gospel, therefore, contradicts that very aim.

Nevertheless, it is not a fatal flaw, especially if readers take the book seriously and enjoy it besides. One main beef of the author, who teaches sociology at the University of Southern California, is that the obsession with healthy eating has taken the fun out of it, and eating without enjoying, according to a study he cites, actually impedes the body’s intake of nutrients!

Since this is the first book of his that I’ve read, I cannot say whether he has a good grasp of statistical methods and thus, whether his informal surveys of clinical studies are accurate, though I must concede that some of his assertions seem intuitive. But that is precisely the problem; many findings of science run counter to intuition.

He asserts, for instance, that many studies in regard to the health benefits of specific diets (what is in and what is out of them) and other habits have ambiguous results, but he hastens to add that the ill effects of smoking are robust. That seems fairly safe as a tentative conclusion.

These days, when we are bombarded with information and conflicting claims---from the safeness of Metro Manila tap water to the alleged benefits of infant formula and virgin coconut oil---we sometimes feel helpless about how to evaluate information and when to say which is real knowledge ( and this is a recurring theme of my blogs). The only antidote to our insecurities is a critical and scientific outlook (which might also tend to increase our insecurities), regardless of how ‘post-modernist’ outlooks cast doubt on science. But we all act on the basis of what we hold to be true, which is why we don’t jump from cliffs while believing some god who loves us will protect us from the ill effects of gravity.

The book does have revelations which may be taken at face value. My favorite is one which defines natural flavoring ‘additives’, a contradiction in terms but one which is exploited by food manufacturers. The US Food and Drug Administration defines natural flavor and natural flavoring as meaning that:

“the essential oil oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any [product of roasting,heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit jiuce, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”


And yet, we pay so much at the supermarket when we read “natural”!

I learned about Glassner’s book from Michael Shermer’s column (The Skeptic) in Scientific American earlier this year and my brother Bobby was kind enough to buy and send me a copy.

Read, drink, and enjoy. That is one point that’s difficult to argue with, unless you are a firm believer in the gospel of abstention.