This Is Critical

The Bleak Ideology of Food Crazes

Episode Summary

It seems like you can't swing a spatula without hitting a claim that eating "this way" will make you happier, stronger, and more productive. As it turns out, diet trends are neither new nor politically innocuous. Lisa Haushofer, author of the upcoming Wonder Foods: The Science and Commerce of Nutrition, joins Virginia to dig into the outsized promises of idealized foods — and their roots in imperialism and racism.

Episode Notes

It seems like you can't swing a spatula without hitting a claim that eating this way will make you happier, stronger, and more productive. As it turns out, diet trends are neither new nor politically innocuous. Lisa Haushofer, author of the upcoming Wonder Foods: The Science and Commerce of Nutrition, joins Virginia to dig into the outsized promises of idealized foods — and their roots in imperialism and racism.

During the course of the conversation, Lisa credited the work of a number of her colleagues; here are those citations.

• Rosenberg, Gabriel N., and Jan Dutkiewicz. “Abolish the Department of Agriculture.” The New Republic, December 27, 2021. 
• Reese, Ashanté M. Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington,. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019.
• Jou, Chin. Supersizing Urban America: How Inner Cities Got Fast Food with Government Help. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
• Scrinis, Gyorgy. Nutritionism: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
• Veit, Helen. Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.