> This article is completely stupid.<snip>
>
COMPLETELY stupid? Utterly moronic? Stunningly imbecilic? That seems a bit overstated, no? :-) Are changes in taste, particularly a greater preference for sweets, really sufficient to explain an "epidemic" of obesity in the US? I thought the article was an interesting attempt at explaining how big changes in the technology and political economy of food production affect everyday life. Pollan's citation of Rorabaugh's book _The Alcoholic Republic_, about how and why the US became a nation of drunkards in the 19th century, seems especially apt. It didn't happen just because people (well, men) suddenly decided for individual, psychological reasons to drink whisky all the time, but in large part because farmers in the early republic hit upon distilling whisky as a way of transforming a glut of corn into some durable, easily transportable form. I would tentatively hazard the suggestion (at the risk of being COMPLETELY stupid) that the epidemic of gluttony and the increased indulgence in sweets represent in part a further erosion of residual puritanism. Puritanism is not without its virtues...
Jacob Conrad