What is Food?

*The background of the blog image was obtained from the Tufts article described and referenced below.

For many years, I never thought much about the food that I consumed. I live in a wealthy nation where food is abundantly available, so I just assumed anything listed as "food" on the grocery store shelves was of the same quality and safe for consumption. 

After having kids, I started to question those assumptions. I may have ignored the warnings against junk food when it came to my own health, but I wasn't willing to do so when it came to my children. I started down a rabbit trail that I am still following today. Now, I find that I have more questions than when I began this journey several years ago. 

I started my quest to provide healthier food to my family by simply purchasing the products with better nutritional marketing. It was more expensive, but I felt that it was worth it if I was making a difference in the health of my children. 

Later, as I chose to exchange working-away-from-home hours for time with my children, I had to be more economical in my choices. So, I dug deeper. 

I began to ask the question: What is food? 

After a lot of self-reflection, I realized that I couldn't answer this simple question. The question of "What is food?" could have easily been answered by a 10-year-old in any other century (after wondering why you were so stupid to even ask). I didn't know where my "food" came from, nor what was in it. I dove into reading ingredient labels and even with a chemistry degree under my belt, I didn't readily know what a lot of these ingredients were, where they were produced, what their function was, nor how they could be considered food. How embarrassing!

I began a slow and tedious process of trying to educate myself on this should-be simple topic. I started from the beginning. Food is provided to us from our Creator (or Mother Nature if you are an atheist as the principle still applies). What food is available from the earth? Plants, animals and fungus (mushrooms). Great! I have a starting point. Now, to apply that principle to each and every product that I bring into the home to be consumed by my family. Easy, right? 

It has been a slow and ongoing process to assess and education myself on our food. I have been trying to reconnect to what food is and how it is produced. I have been doing this research by myself, in secret. I haven't shared this journey with many people because I have been too embarrassed to admit that I am so dumb as to not understand the question: What is food? 

THEN, I discovered the recent study published by Tuft University that ranked the nutritional value of our foods. My reading started with this article:

Ranking Healthfulness of Foods from First to Worst | Tufts Now

This article describes the goals for the study and the author's hopes that it will affect policies in the food industry and even influence the foods recommended for children in schools. One of the first paragraphs even states that Americans are confused about nutrition and could use a guideline that they hope to provide. 

Great! We now have a ranking system for the nutritional value of food to help navigate this difficult path. Or so I thought. 

The article didn't really go into much detail about the actual study, so I followed their provided links:

Food Compass is a nutrient profiling system using expanded characteristics for assessing healthfulness of foods | Nature Food

This article is more detailed and contains several impressive charts. I was looking for simple explanations of the ingredients found on the labels of some of our favorite foods so that I could have a one-stop location of nutritional-based information. This wasn't what I found.

Instead, the article focused on comparing their scoring ability to other common nutritional scoring guidelines (NPS and HSR). My reading goal was simply different than the goal of the article. However, a couple of things stood out to me:

1. They used twelve weighted categories to score each food item discussed. (see a copy of the chart below). This seemed a bit excessive to me. Psalm 136:25 states "He gives food to every creature...". If the Lord provides food for every creature as stated, then why don't we go back to those roots to understand what we need to eat? Why do we need twelve categories with multiple subcategories (54 attributes) for evaluation? It seemed a bit overly complicated, but I pushed through hoping that the author would explain why these extended categories were necessary.

The main reason stated for using multiple categories was because previous scoring systems "have not incorporated the newest science". They validated their information by "assessing nutrients, food ingredients and other characteristics of public health concern".

As a student of health for many years, I know that humans have learned a lot about the components of food. We now have the ability to test a tomato for the exact amount of vitamin and mineral content. That's fascinating information but does it change the way that consumption of a tomato nourishes our body? Maybe you could argue that cultivation of certain species of tomatoes for properties related to longevity and travel in exchange for nutritional value could change the absorption of the final nutrients into the body, but food varieties and production methods were not addressed in the article. 

2. The category "food-based ingredients" was only a 1/7th of the total consideration when ranking the food products. If the whole point of the scoring system was to provide nutritional information to the public about the food that they consume, why is "food-based ingredients" considered a category instead of the focus of the entire article? Is this the author's way of admitting that the scientists know that the majority of our "food" isn't actually food but instead "food-based ingredients"? If given the option of consuming a food or a food-based ingredient, shouldn't we automatically be trying to choose the actual food? If that is the case, then why is it only a small portion of their assessment value? I will admit that this organization of the study truly baffles me. 

3. The categories "nutrient ratios", "vitamins" and "minerals", when combined, make up the majority of the rankings. In my opinion, this has the possibility of skewing the results towards those manufactured products where vitamins and minerals are jammed into an item during production. It was never mentioned in the article how efficiently the vitamins and minerals added to the processed foods were absorbed by the human body. I have spent countless hours learning about the absorption of drugs and the nuances that go into the development of these entities. Simply because an ingredient is crammed into a pill or "food-like product" doesn't mean that the human body will recognize it, absorb it, process it or utilize it as intended. 

The human body is complex. You cannot simply swallow something and expect the entire contents of consumption to be utilized by the body. The body is designed to protect itself from harmful chemicals and will work to avoid absorbing things that it identifies as "foreign". Our bodies were designed to absorb the vitamins and minerals from our food in a way that we don't completely understand. Stuffing junk food with minerals and vitamins cannot substitute the natural way that our bodies have absorbed these nutrients for centuries. This has been proven multiple times by the difficulty in producing vitamin supplements that will be efficiently absorbed by the body without causing side effects, such as gastrointestinal distress.

Humans are quite an arrogant and egotistical species to believe that we can recreate every aspect of nature in a laboratory. We have failed on multiple occasions and yet we ignore those failures and push forward pretending that we have all of the answers. Will we ever learn?

If you go further into the article, you can find more information about how they listed specific items:

43016_2021_381_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (springer.com)

Remember that in their scoring system, the closer to 100 is considered the best while closer to 0 is the worst. Please do your own research but here are a few things that I noticed when reviewing the list:

The prioritization of margarine over butter. 

  -- Peas and carrots fresh cooked in butter = 63

  -- Peas and carrots fresh cooked in margarine = 73

If you haven't taken the time to look into the history of margarine, I encourage you to do so. It is quite interesting. To stay focused on the topic at hand, I will simply state that margarine was originally used as a cheap and more shelf-stable substitute for butter. Later, marketing gurus attempted to convince us that margarine was healthier for us. We can discuss this at a later time, but when comparing two identical items, margarine ranked higher than butter every time. Why? How did they decide that butter was the inferior product? Where is their scientific evidence to support their decision? I couldn't find this information. 

Egg substitutes ranked higher than actual eggs. 

 -- Egg substitute, omelet =75

 -- Egg omelet with tomatoes and dark green vegetables = 63

 -- Whole boiled egg = 48

Egg substitutes are created and distributed by multiple manufacturers. Each one has a variety of ingredients. I did a quick search and found that some egg substitutes use pea protein/flour, some use potato starch, and some didn't even have the ingredient list readily available. Yet, distinctions were not made between the different types or manufacturers when ranking them. 

I raise my own chickens and rotationally graze them most of the year. I can attest to the quality difference between the traditional CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feed Operation) produced egg and my eggs. Yet, the production process of the eggs evaluated in this study wasn't addressed. 

How can you directly compare items in a ranking with so many unknown variables? 

There were many items listed with unknown ingredients.

  -- Bacon bits = 52 

   -- Chicken nuggets = 32

What are considered "bacon bits" in this article? Is it crumbled pieces of fried bacon from pasture raised pork or processed "bacon bits" with a wide variety of ingredients?

What part of a chicken is a "nugget"? Whose brand of chicken nugget did they asses? How were the chicken nuggets prepared? 

Again, how can a ranking system be considered valid when there are so many variables that have not been considered? Why did they spend so much effort separating peas being cooked in butter or margarine but avoid discussing or listing the ingredients for these items?

A lot of the meat options were lower on the list.

  -- Beef roast = 27

  -- Bacon = 6

So, "bacon bits" are ranked as 52 but bacon is 6. Why?

We all have our biases. What are the personal diets of the researchers? Were they vegan or vegetarian? Did this play a role in why most meats ranked so low on the list? 

Some people speculate that money was involved. I don't doubt the validity of this argument since historically, the greedy pursuit of personal wealth has led to many atrocities. Some people point out the highest donors to the university and types of grant money received. If these "scientists" "professionals" and "nutritionists" are either corrupt enough to mislead the population or confused (as I was) is unknown as I cannot know the intentions of everyone involved in this study.

The most concerning aspects of this article are that their published information may be misleading to the busy public and that it has the potential to alter guidelines and recommendations. I hope that someone takes the time to evaluate some of my questions (and those of others) related to these articles before using this information as a basis for policy decisions.

Despite my concerns, I have very little influence over how this ranking system will be utilized for the general public. The intent of the authors simply does not matter. I have to focus on the things that I can control or influence. 

I have decided to start writing about some of the various food products that we purchase and the ingredients in them. I hope that some of my readers may find this informative and useful. If you are knowledgeable on the topic and would like to share your thoughts and insights, I welcome them in the comment sections of the blog. Maybe we can turn these blogs into an open discussion where everyone learns from the experiences of others. I am not an expert on nutrition. I am simply a mother that wants to learn more about the origins of the food that her family consumes. Please join me and let's learn together!