Gourmets, Guilt, and Parenthood

I'm probably not a real foodie, because I used to live just a few blocks away from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkeley and I never actually ate there. Chez Panisse advocates humanely, locally, and sustainably-produced meat, fruits, and vegetables. As the restaurant's website explains for the uninitiated,

Since 1971, Chez Panisse has invited diners to partake of the immediacy and excitement of vegetables just out of the garden, fruit right off the branch, and fish straight out of the sea. In doing so, Chez Panisse has established a network of nearby suppliers who, like the restaurant, are striving for both environmental harmony and delicious flavor.

I thought about the time I spent in Berkeley when I read B. R. Myers' "The Moral Crusade Against Foodies" published in The Atlantic online. In the essay, he equates the foodie quest for the perfect food or meal not with morality and environmental harmony but with with gluttony. "The Catholic Church's criticism [of gluttony] has always been directed against an inordinate preoccupation with food - against foodie-ism, in other words," Myers writes.

Those with personal or religious (or medical?) restrictions on what they eat are laughed at by foodies, Myers writes:

In the involuted world of gourmet morals, constancy is rudeness. One must never spoil a dinner party for mere religious or ethical reasons. [Michael] Pollan says he sides with the French in regarding 'any personal dietary prohibition as bad manners.'... guests have a greater obligation to please their host... than vice versa.

The obesity epidemic clearly demonstrates that you are what you eat. But for some people, what you eat also reflects your class, income, and general merit. And those are more important factors for them than health.

Meanwhile, a study came out in the journal Child Development that found that 8 to 12 year old children of working mothers tend to have higher BMIs than those whose mothers don't work, particularly the older children in the study.

"The longer a mom's employment - whether she's toiling at a regular 9-to-5 job or works irregular hours - the more likely her child is to gain more weight than is healthy," wrote Kathleen Doheny in a WebMD article about the study. Working mothers might have heavier children because they spend less time planning and cooking healthy meals at home than mothers who don't work.

"This is a not a reason for moms to feel guilty," said the study's lead researcher Taryn Morrissey unreassuringly. After all, anything that makes mothers feel guilty, worried, or horrified usually gets media attention (Tiger Mom, anyone?), and this study has received a lot of press.

A mother who overthinks food because she wants to define herself and her class by what she feeds her children might be amoral and shallow. A working mother who does not spend enough time thinking about and planning what she feeds her children might be making her kids overweight and contributing to the obesity epidemic. The middle ground, where feeding the family is a function of budget, time, and effort (and where this task is not assigned immutably to the woman in the family), is a quiet, perhaps dull place. But that's where most of us live.

Food and Class in America

I'm interested in the locavore food movement, and agree with the principles of the slow food movement: think about where your food comes from, and how both the food sources and those who grow and pick the food are treated.

Finding, buying, and/or growing the freshest seasonal foods, however, can be both expensive and time-consuming. Because it takes time and money to be a foodie, the locavore and related foodie movements are class movements as well. Newsweek's November 29 cover article, "Divided We Eat," by Lisa Miller, explores the class divisions that food can create.

"Food has become the premier marker of social distinctions, that is to say - social class," epidemiologist Adam Drewnowski told Miller. "It used to be clothing and fashion, but no longer, now that 'luxury' has become affordable and available to all." Since the cost of nutritious food is rising faster than the cost of unhealthy food, wrote Miller, the poor often can't afford to eat healthy food. Wealthier (and subsequently healthier) families can.

It's clear from some of the content in the Newsweek article that some people are far more concerned about the quality of what they eat each day than about what - or whether - others in their community eat. Eating locally, for example, might be both high-status and tasty, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problems of our flawed food system.

The legislation that expands the FDA's powers to inspect food that passed in the Senate this week, on the other hand, might bring about more profound changes. The new legislation would let the FDA recall food, better access records at places where food is produced, increase the frequency of inspections of food facilities, and inspect a wider range of imported foods, explained Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post ("Senate approves bill to require foodmakers to find ways to prevent contamination").

An overhaul of school lunch funding is also working its way through Congress now. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act would expand school lunch funding, increase the number of children who are eligible for the program, and encourage using local food sources for the lunches. The act would also encourage schools to create schoolyard gardens.

Class divisions have real consequences on people's lives. Analyses of health and life expectancy by neighborhood, such as one that a local county public health department conducted earlier this year, make it clear that where you can afford to live affects how long and how well you live. Health, wealth, and class are all related. Expanding access to safe and healthy food might help narrow the health gap between different classes, and perhaps budge some class divisions as well.

Superfood Burnout

I think that the Baby Boomers, concerned about preserving their health as they age, are responsible for our obsession with "superfoods" that can protect us from disease. A while ago, the superfood of choice was antioxidant-packed pomegranate juice - particularly when marketed as the Pom Wonderful drink - which might prevent hardening of the arteries and prevent Alzheimer's disease (although the Pom Wonderful website is careful not to make these claims).

More recently, the acai berry, whose antioxidants might prevent cancer and heart disease, has pushed aside pomegranates as the food of choice. Other holier-than-thou, nutrient-rich foods that we should be eating include quinoa, spelt, and heirloom tomatoes.


Of course it's important to think about what you eat. This Sunday's New York Times had a cover article on the horrifying amount of salt in many processed foods, and salt's role in increasing the rates of high blood pressure in Americans. The food industry, meanwhile, is fighting to keep the salt in their foods to cover up the true flavor of their products' ingredients.


I support the slow food movement, avoid processed foods, and cook from scratch as much as I can. I prowl for stone fruit, corn on the cob, strawberries, and figs at the local farmers' markets when I have time. I have a budget, though, and I don't have hours to cook, or shop for the perfect ingredients, each day.

When exactly did eating healthy morph into an obsession with eating the perfect foods? I want my family to eat well, but that doesn't mean I'm sprinkling acai berries on their oatmeal in the morning.

And can you really enjoy your meals if you're too busy either feeling guilty for eating the wrong things, or self-righteous for eating the right ones? What does this superfood obsession say about us as Americans, who always seem to demand simple answers for complex problems such as heart disease?