Scientific eating
Nutritional recommendations were born at the end of the 19th century with the discovery that humans need 20 calories per pound of weight each day; 55 to 65 percent of this energy intake ought to come from carbohydrates, a quarter from fats and something over 10 percent from proteins.
These guidelines did not emerge only from scientific inquiry but also from a desire to maximize efficiency. In 1888, the American chemist Wilbur O. Atwater devised a series of formulas that would help people get the most energy from the least food. Economics and physiology would be joined in what he called "the pecuniary economy of food." Atwater pioneered a movement that came to be known as "scientific eating."
The notion appealed to French physicians, who had been looking for ways to improve working-class health and budgets. They believed that these households spent too much on meat and alcohol. Their program of "rational eating" aimed to instruct the poor to keep food expenses within the limits of their (modest) budgets. They urged the substitution of protein-rich legumes for red meat, pasta for sausages, and sugared beverages for wine.
Martin Bruegel, historian at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, is the editor of "A Cultural History of Food in the Age of Empire."
The history of "scientific eating" offers several lessons. Nutritional campaigns can succeed in influencing consumer behavior only if they take into account the sensual joys of eating. The French continued to eat their red meat and drink their red wine because rich meals gave them a sense of belonging to a community. Similarly, American consumers after World War II saw access to plentiful, ever cheaper and ever less healthy foods as proof of the American promise -- even if the impact on their waistlines, and well-being, has been disastrous.
In an era of stagnant wages, dystopian politics and cultural anomie, eating indulgent if unhealthful food has become a last redoubt of enjoyment for Americans who don't feel they have much control in their lives.
Higher incomes and better educations -- in the classroom, not on the menu board -- will do more to solve the obesity epidemic than mandating the disclosure of calorie counts. Before we blame the poor and the overweight for their inability to manage their budgets or control their appetites, we might want to think not only about the foods they encounter in the supermarket and on television but about a culture that relies ever more on unhealthy foods to breathe meaning and purpose into everyday life.