Charmion, this week's book is Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, and in the current chapter he is taking the concept of "Nutrients" for a spin. I read a criticism of some of Pollan's theories in the big Taubes' book, I think it's the "more vegetables, less meat" part. So far they both cast a critical eye at the Western diet and food industries.

At any rate, Pollan discusses how the only way some of the science folks could discuss types of food without the big food companies coming down on them was to break everything into neutral components to discuss. Nutrients. Protein is general enough, it can be meat or fish or poultry (so the beef or chicken producers don't complain). Sugars have a huge lobby. And both of these authors describe the problem that nutritionists don't really understand how Food works. They understand what the party line is as far as parts of food, the nutrients, and for many of them all things are created equal (e.g., all sugars are the same. Except they're not.)

Rain is headed this way and on Sunday the clocks change ("fall back"). I've waited months to reclaim this hour.