Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat

230 Pages·2012·1.27 MB·English

by  Harvey Levenstein

fear of food

FEAR
of
Food
a history of
Why We Worry about What We Eat
Harvey Levenstein
Th e University of Chicago Press
c h ic ag o a n d l on d on
harvey levenstein is professor emeritus of history at
McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has published a
number of books on American history, including Revolution at the
Table: Th e Transformation of the American Diet and Paradox of Plenty :
A Social History of Eating in Modern America.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2012 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2012.
Printed in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-47374-1 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-47374-0 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levenstein, Harvey A., 1938–
(cid:20)Fear of food: a history of why we worry about what we eat /
Harvey Levenstein.
(cid:20)(cid:20)p. cm.
(cid:20)Includes bibliographical references and index.
(cid:20)isbn-13: 978-0-226-47374-1 (cloth: alkaline paper)
(cid:20)isbn-10: 0-226-47374-0 (cloth: alkaline paper) 1. Food—United
States— Psychological aspects. 2. Nutrition—United States—
Psychological aspects. 3. Diet—United States. 4. Food
preferences—United States. 5. Eating disorders—United
States. 6. Phobias—United States. I. Title.
(cid:20)tx360.u6l47 2012
(cid:20)613.2—dc23 2011035700
This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
1 Germophobia 5
2 Milk: “The Most Valuable and
Dangerous Food” 17
3 Autointoxication and Its
Discontents 27
4 Bacteria and Beef 43
5 L ucrezia Borgias in the Kitchen? 61
6 Vitamania and Its Defi ciencies 79
7 “ Hidden Hunger” Stalks the Land 95
8 Natural Foods in Shangri-la 107
9 Lipophobia 125
10 Creating a National Eating
Disorder 139
Coda 161
Abbreviations for Frequently
Cited Sources 165
Notes 167
Index 209

The willingness to eat not for pleasure
but for health is doubtless due to a fun -
Preface damental U.S. trait: the fear of being
sickly. Perhaps in England, but certainly
not in France or Spain or Germany or
Russia, will you fi nd people so anxious to
believe that by eating a certain way they
can achieve a life buoyant and vigorous.
Here it is the gourmet who is the curios-
ity, the dietitian who is the prophet.
Fortune, May 1936¹
While writing two books on the history of American tourism to France,
I became intrigued that so many of the Americans who toured France in
the twentieth century had a very problematic relationship with French
food. Although much of the world regarded the quality of French food as
unparalleled, middle-class Americans oft en approached it with fear and
trepidation. They worried that the famed French sauces camoufl aged
tainted meat, that the unfamiliar foods on the menus could make them
sick, and that restaurant kitchens and servers were unhygienic. (This is
not to mention the toilets!) Why, I began to wonder, did they have such a
fraught relationship with food?²
Meanwhile, the American psychologist Paul Rozin and the French so-
ciologist Claude Fischler were doing cross-national surveys of att itudes
toward food that highlighted how diff erent Americans were from Euro-
peans in this regard. One survey showed that the French and Americans
were at opposite ends of the spectrum on the scale of food fears. For in-
stance, when asked what came to mind at the mention of whipped cream
and chocolate, the French tended to respond with thoughts of pleasure,
while Americans replied with words such as “guilt” or “unhealthy.” This
prompted Rozin to observe, “There is a sense among many Americans
that food is as much a poison as it is a nutrient, and that eating is al-
most as dangerous as not eating.” A later survey, co-directed by Fischler,
reinforced this. It showed Americans to be more apprehensive and feel
guiltier about food than people in France and four other European na-
tions. The contrast was especially marked with the French, who tended to
regard eating as a social, rather than an individual, act—that is, as a con-
vivial pleasure. Americans, on the other hand, were plagued by a sense
viii : preface
of individual responsibility in making their food choices, which were
dictated by “dietetic” rather than “culinary” concerns.³
All of this spurred me to reexamine why Americans, who for much
of the twentieth century regarded themselves as “the best-fed people in
the world,” had become this way. I say “reexamine,” because in 1993 I
concluded Paradox of Plenty , the second of my two histories of modern
American food, with a reference to “the paradox of a people surrounded
by abundance who are unable to enjoy it.”⁴ However, the main thrust of
that book and its predecessor, Revolution at the Table, was to examine the
wide range of forces that have shaped American food habits since about
1880. Fear of food played but a minor role in those works. In this book,
I have used some of the topics mentioned in them, such as the various
att empts to clean up the food supply and to combat the eff ects of large-
scale processing, as jumping-off points for further research into how
these contributed to Americans’ anxieties about food. This has allowed
me to look at topics such as the campaigns for “pure” and “natural” foods,
Vitamania, and fear of saturated fat from a perspective that is diff erent
from other studies, including mine. The result, I hope, is a book that will
appeal to readers interested in how Americans’ current relationships to
food developed over time. I hope as well that it might serve as an antidote
to much of the current fearmongering about food. If it can help lessen
even a few people’s anxieties and increase the pleasure they get from eat-
ing, I will regard it as a success.
I must once again thank my wife, Mona, for being what the old radio
comedian used to call “my boon companion and severest critic.” As with
my previous books, she went over the draft s of the manuscript with a
sharp yet sympathetic eye, making many useful suggestions for revision.
My friend Claude Fischler of the Centre national de la recherche scienti-
fi que (CNRS) in Paris read much of the manuscript from the perspective
of a social scientist, while my molecular biologist friend Jack Pasternak,
professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo, provided the perspec-
tive of a real scientist. Dr. Donald Rosenthal, professor emeritus at Mc-
Master University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, helped
reinforce my skepticism about the confi dence with which medical wis-
dom is oft en dispensed and vett ed parts of the manuscript for medical
errors. Professor Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania read the
completed manuscript for the publisher and made a number of useful
suggestions that I have tried to incorporate. As usual, Doug Mitchell, my
ix : preface
editor at the University of Chicago Press, was very supportive in helping
the manuscript over the various hurdles. Of course, its message about
enjoying food went down well with such a dedicated bec fi n, who allows
no fears to impede his appreciation of the pleasures of the table. His
aide-de-camp, Tim McGovern, was, as always, super-competent at helping
to get the manuscript into publishable shape.
Parts of this book are based on the lectures I gave in 2009 at the annual
Joanne Goodman Lecture Series of the University of Western Ontario in
London, Ontario. The Joanne Goodman Lecture Series was established
by Joanne’s family and friends to perpetuate the memory of her blithe
spirit, her quest for knowledge, and the rewarding years she spent at the
University of Western Ontario.
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
January 2011