Some thoughts on food

Stick to the recipe

Like many Americans, I aspire to eat ‘healthy’. In my opinion that means eating most of my meals at home. Cooking from basic ingredients (i.e. rice, chicken, vegetables) and not eating processed food (bag of prepackaged, breaded frozen orange chicken)— is my core philosophy. Since I am Indian, I believe in lots of spices and aromatics. I also believe in not eating too much. I believe in being hungry before you eat. Of course, I have little robust evidence that my food views maximize health. In fact, I do it for a different reason. I feel better eating in this manner. If I eat out too much I feel bloated and lethargic.

There are lots of things I prefer to avoid. I don't eat cake. I don't eat fries or any fried food. I don't drink sugary drinks. And yet, like many, I am not perfect and once every few months I do. If I am travelling and jet lagged and skipped meals and feel headache-y and have to give a lecture, I will have a coke. If I am in Belgium and order mussels, I will eat pomme frites. If it is a special occasion, I will have a piece of cake.

In these situations, I don't want a diet coke. I want a Mexican coke with real sugar not high fructose corn syrup. I don't want a cake baked with half the sugar and half the butter, but one that sticks to the recipe fit for Paul Hollywood. I don't want fries cooked in safflower oil, but ones made in tallow.

If you are going to indulge, then indulge. And yet, I see so many protest this philosophy. Don't eat fries, but if you do, it's better they are cooked in shitty oil and are floppy and lifeless. Really? Don't drink coke, but if you do, take the one with aspartame. And the shitty cake that comes in a box and doesn't rot is the same as the handmade cake from simple ingredients with butter frosting. Proponents of this view cite disgracefully poor observational studies and act so confident. Seed oils are better than tallow they claim!

Really? If you randomize people to tallow vs seed oils do they eat the same amount of fries? Do they get hungrier sooner? What else do they eat over the course of the day? If tallow makes the price go up, do they eat fries less per month? Also what about pleasure, texture, mouth feel? What happens to mood?

They have no fucking clue. And yet they keep talking.

The move away from simple ingredients to processed ones was largely a profit maximizing move by the food industry. Improving shelf stability makes more money. Meanwhile, the quality of food has deteriorated from a chefs/ diner perspective. That's why Bourdain continued to use tallow. That's why Bakers use butter and eggs and not margarine and whatever sad polymer you need to replace eggs.

Along comes RFK and others who are skeptical that advances in food technology are unalloyed good. They want to ban or reduce dyes and stabilizers and novel oils that can only be produced under industrial level conditions. And many oppose this saying: we don't have strong evidence that these are harmful.

Who gives a fuck? The entire modern American diet is the end product of unprecedented chemistry for which there is no evidence people are healthier. And, the food tastes shitty. And, any chef worth their salt, rejects these conveniences from their kitchen. So why is the burden of proof to show that tallow is healthier and not the other way around? And what about all the forgotten and understudied aspects of eating?

In the absence of data on all these questions, I think it is better to stick the recipes, as they were intended to be made, and as they have been made for centuries. I find it odd to defend seed oils and dyes and food that doesn't rot.