The Pollanization of Uhmerica

Last week we witnessed the great Poe-Lan address a Barnes and Nobles room chock-full of weirdos to promote his new novella.   It's a crowdsourced compendium of common-sense commandments that can ruin your relationship with fat friends and family as a transparent and awkward gift.  His original seven word edict (Eat Food Not Too Much Mostly Plants) was a bit too enigmatic, so he made like sixty rules of thumb that can be accompanied by smug chuckling.  While it should really be a free pamphlet or series of blog posts, his publisher would much rather add in some light sketches of real food, and charge for it.

First, Poe-Lan is a really great speaker.  He covered all his talking points economically, entertainingly, and seemingly without effort.  He brought great energy and signed every book.  His only intellectual misstep was to tout the sustainability of organic farming, which he had gone to great lengths in The Dilemma to convince us is really not more sustainable than industrial agriculture.  In one part of his talk, he discussed how many of his previous guidelines had to be changed to combat the changes the food industry has implemented in response to his criticisms.  In particular, he singled out "Three Ingredient Tostitos" and the celebration of cane sugar over high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Poe-Lan previously advised his followers not to consume products containing over five ingredients, which has caused some food manufacturers to *shockingly* make products with less than five ingredients, and to market that point aggressively.  Case in point is the "Three Ingredient Tostitos", made of corn, oil, and salt, which Poe-Lan derided as "still ... chips".  So, even if an industrially processed food is reformed to be Pollanesque, its original sin precludes it from being consumed by Pollanists.  We, on the other hand, see the inroads of Pollanism in mainstream food culture as a good thing.  We challenge the food blogosphere to purchase heritage corn kernels from a farmers market, grind them on their own artisanal stone wheel, treat the flour with limewater to make masa dough, press it, cook it, slice it, fry them in organic canola oil, and season them with crushed sea salt to produce tortilla chips that are suitable for Poe-Lan.  In Poe-Lan's world it seems like its either that or disavowing chips -- and we can't picture living that life.

Poe-Lan also told his followers not to eat any product that contains HFCS, leading to consumer demand that has caused industrial food manufacturers to begin offering some products in versions containing cane sugar instead.  Now, Poe-Lan doesn't think HFCS is any worse than other sugars, just that HFCS is an easy indicator of an overly processed, unfit food.  Case in point is the offering of "Throwback Pepsi" made from cane sugar -- its still Pepsi, right?.  But the allure of cane sugar is not the (nonexistent) health benefits, but the superior taste.  Previously, if one wanted to drink a cola with the crisp and uncloying sweetness of cane sugar they had to shell out for bourgeois cola from an overpriced sandwich shop or for imported cola from a Mexican grocery.  So we are excited about the return of the tastier cane sugar, still understanding that sweetness should be consumed sparingly.  The food industry has begun to lobby for the bringing down of mind-numbingly stupid sugar tariffs against Brazil, thus weakening it's unholy destructive marriage to the Corn Trust and making real change to Uhmerica's farm policy more realistic.

Back when Poe-Lan Defended Food, he made some rules so that people could more easily live according to His plan.  Consumer demand and the truth in his critique has resulted in industry introspection and co-option of parts of His message. This has made the quality of food the average person can attain begin to improve.  We're not aware of any technology that has rejected industrialism; the economies of scale involved in mass food production are here to stay.  The best we can hope for Uhmerica is that the offerings of the food industry can become better.  Rather than greet the news of this achievement with smug chuckles from a bookstore (in the NIMBY-celeb shithole that is TriBeCa), Poe-Lan and his followers should be proud.