I’ve been reading a very interesting new book, “White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf” by Aaron Bobrow-Strain. The author has written about how the concept of a white flour bread, vs the older style whole wheat or dark bread was and is linked to social and political movements over the past 130 years or so. White bread went from being a food only for the elite of society who could afford it in the early 1900’s, to our current conception of white bread as unhealthy and nutritionally a very poor food.
The author describes five “seductive dreams” that American consumer has pursued and that are wrapped up in our ideas about food, health and nutrition. He says, “All five dreams endowed eating with seductive moral clarity: some foods were obviously good and some were clearly evil.” Ideas about food are metaphors for our “longing and anxiety” about health, national security, the purity of the food supply, naturalness, and scientific control over the production of food.
We have come to these anxieties with an idea of combat: we will fight against germs, against “industrial food” production, and for perfect health. This struck quite a chord for me. Why is our health something that includes a fight? We fight against obesity, and against a variety of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. We actually have a “war on the epidemic of obesity”. If we lose one of these fights, we have done something wrong. The idea seems to be that if you fight hard enough and are perfect enough, you will have “perfect” health and a perfect body.
I think these are illusions and really wishful thinking. There is no perfection in our diet, our health, and in life. In this way, we project onto food and our diets the urge for control and for perfection.
I find this all so very interesting! Let me know what you think about these ideas.
About Aaron Bobrow-Strain – He is an associate professor of politics at Whitman College, writes and teaches on the politics of the global food system. He is the author of Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Power, and Violence in Chiapas. His site, blog and appearance schedule is listed on his site White Bread Book.
