100% Real Foodstuffs

          A few weeks ago when I was walking my dog, I noticed a discarded McDonald’s apple pie carton.  The side of the box seemed to proudly proclaim “Real apples make it real good.”  I thought for a minute how odd this seemed.  What would they use to make apple pie other than real apples?  If they were suggesting that using real apples made them better than their competitors or was a sign of quality, it seemed like a pretty low bar.  However, McDonald’s appears to be far from alone in making these basic claims.  Burger King’s Crown Standard quality commitment reassures customers that their burgers are 100% beef and that their flame-grilling process uses “REAL FIRE.”  I guess this is opposed to some of their chicken products like the Tendercrisp fried chicken patties that contain up to 18% water/seasoning solution.  Not to be outdone on the chicken front, Subway has a webpage detailing their commitment to customers that includes a quote from the CEO refuting reports that their chicken is only 50% chicken (http://www.subway.com/en-us/menunutrition/nutrition/realchicken).  Again, a restaurant proudly claiming that their chicken is 100% chicken is an awfully low bar.

          All that being said, I don’t think this is something I would have noticed or paid much attention to before taking this course.  It has become so common for us to eat foodstuffs rather than food.  For those curious on a definition for foodstuff here it is: a substance suitable for consumption as food (maybe the bar really is that low after all).  In his book titled In Defence of Food, Michael Pollan summarizes our transition from eating food to consuming foodstuffs.  He details how foods have been replaced by items that have similar nutritional values but that aren’t nearly as healthy.  He also lists the myriad of health problems that this transition has caused.  However, rather than painting a picture solely of gloom and doom, he also provides a list of simple rules meant to lead to better eating decisions.  A few relevant ones for this discussion are to avoid foods your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as foods, avoid items that have too many or any unfamiliar ingredients, and to avoid food that makes bold health claims as these items are typically processed and many of these claims are unsubstantiated.  I might humbly suggest adding foods that claim to be 100% real to this list as that is likely a sign of something that is processed or a product that is unnatural in some fashion (Pollan touches on this a bit with his mantra of “Eat Food”).  It seems like pretty basic advice but given the food options that surround us, it might be something that is good to remember.