Forget great-grandmother not recognizing today's food...I am convinced my grandmothers would not recognize half the stuff on most supermarket or convenience store shelves. Corn syrup is in everything! (it's cheap) Preservatives are in everything! (food has to travel an average of 1500 miles to get to the grocery store then sit on the shelves for who knows how long before it gets in our bodies) Phthalates are in our food containers. (gotta have the mayo & ketchup come from a handy squeeze bottle) Sulfites, sugar, ah! (and I should mention if you are worried about sulfites in your wine, there are actually more ppm [parts per million] of sulfites in O.J., dried fruits and cured meats than wine!) And then you look at a label like Rare Bird preserves or Milk & Honey Granola. Apples...almonds...oats...wheat germ...lemon juice...salt. Real ingredients that were definitely around when grandma was. She would recognize those ingredients (and yes, probably still be impressed with the pretty packaging!) and feel good about eating them. Pollan has a rule (#6) of not eating anything with more than 5 ingredients, so technically Milk & Honey Granola would lose, BUT I say let's give 'em a pass, since it's granola for pete's sake, and I know what each ingredient actually looks like & tastes like in it's raw form. Besides, I don't think that is what Pollan is getting at: if you're eating a cereal that has 14 ingredients and you can only understand 2 of them, something's wrong.
All this talk about edible foodlike substances is making me hungry...
right on :-)
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