The Problem of Nourishment in the United States (2)

Ray Claude

American eaters face serious difficulties when attempting to
use information and procedures typically given them for
selecting foodstuffs that might be propitious to their well-
being. They especially lack effective and comprehensive
procedure for evaluating their intake. They face an endless
onslaught of fabrication, feigned competence, and duplicity
regarding matters of nutrition and nourishment. That which
follows, a continuation of the posting Eating: A Matter Gone
Awry (Copyright 2004, Ray Claude), treats these allegations.

CHAPTER 1 (continued)

THE TENDENCY TO CONFUSE NUTRITION FOR NOURISHMENT

Nourishment is variously a process (an effort) and an effect
(a result) of such process, depending on the aspect in which
it is seen. Such effort is necessarily in the hands of
individual eaters. Such effect is necessarily enjoyed or
suffered by individual eaters. Nutrition is a difficult
study. It is not a process and it does not necessarily have
an effect. Nourishment and nutrition are distinct pursuits.
Apparently, the distinction is not sufficient to prevent
confusion, confusion so broad and pervasive that barriers
have come to exist between the eater and his informants. For
example, eaters are most often addressed as though they are
nutritionists, as though eaters seek to be edified by
scientific insight, not by procedure. Eaters are not
prepared for such onslaught. They might conclude that they
must acquire expertise of formidable proportion. They might
be left unaware that most findings of nutrition must be
interpreted and recast before they can be applied to the
matter of nourishment. They become discouraged or
indifferent. They withdraw from the arena floor. A pathetic
error has been made. To the extent that we have been
negligent in permitting such confusion, we have been
irresponsible. To the extent that we have promoted such
confusion, we have committed fraud.

THE ASPECTS OF SUCH CONFUSION

The nature of problems encountered during assessment of the
merit of an individual's intake makes it most difficult to
devise simple and effective procedures. Such difficulty has
led writers to avoid the subject or to give it only partial
treatment. It is easier to describe an individual foodstuff
or individual nutrient without once suggesting how the eater
might propitiously make that foodstuff a part of his total
intake or without once suggesting how the eater might
consider his total intake anew in light of that nutrient. It
is easier to describe a danger of nutrient deficiency and a
risk of nutrient excess than it is to provide effective
procedure for gauging intake of the nutrient. Eaters are
showered with information of hard-to-determine import,
uncertain pedigree, and (often) of only tentative value.
Suggestions are made that a given nutrient source is so
important that, if selected, detailed consideration of
alternate sources might be unnecessary. Eaters are served
with strictures of little or no utility in the pursuit of
well-being. Such is the work of hacks and parrots, not of
those who would take care to relate the information to the
matter of nourishment and to its practical attainment. If we
are negligent, we will take the easier path. If we are in
the snake oil business, we will avoid the harder path.
Either way, confusion is perpetuated and the eater is left
uninformed or (at best) improperly informed. The practices
are so pervasive that the matter of nourishment has been
masked, even displaced. Eaters are left without the
resources needed to evaluate their nourishment. They are not
even advised that evaluation has become a necessity.

Such aspects are inexcusable. They represent practices that
are unqualifiedly nonsensical. They lack a rational base.
Collectively, they produce absurd and catastrophic results,
results that reliably indicate that something has gone awry,
perhaps almost chaotic. Eaters are guided away from a sound
state of comprehension and toward a pathetically passive
state of ignorance relative to the safe and effective
gaining of nourishment.

There are enough semi-technical and popular books on
nutrition to collect and hide all of this galaxy's dark
matter. They require light-years of shelving and galaxy-size
containers for their storage. Most belong in storage. In
their totality, they might represent the most miserable
genre of literature so far produced. Few even bother with
nourishment. Even fewer deal with nourishment as provided by
total intake, that which leads variously to well-being and
to debilitation. A relatively few excellent (although
usually more technical) works are lost among piles of look-
alikes that exploit gullibility, parrot nonsense, and
nurture fear. The spirit of the penny dreadful persists.

Books are not alone in the dissemination of nonsense. Every
form of media designed for popular consumption contributes
to the din. The Federal Government, once on a track to
supply reliable data on foodstuffs, has apparently decided
that a mere show of superficially good intent might be
politically safer. Unaware eaters accept bad advice. Others
are indifferent to life's biochemical dictates. The
discouraged simply shun the noise. The effect is to push
eaters along a course that will make solution increasingly
more difficult.

THE NECESSARY COURSE

The advantage of a healthy public is a certain one, an
advantage that is almost critical. Because a healthy public
depends on sound choices of its individual members (still
free, the last time I looked), there is need for members to
demand and get good information. Eaters who take the issue
to heart can, through their actions in the market place and
their voices in the forum, drive the quacks from the arena,
induce sources and vendors to abandon their drivel, and
restore governmental attention to the task of producing
reliable information. Nobody is going to step in and