Nutrition is probably one of the most important things in our society and is extremely essential to our quality of living. In order for our bodies to perform to its best ability, our nutrition has to be valued as a top priority. But what exactly is nutrition? Where did the idea of nutrition even come from?
The aspects of Nutrition could go back to an idea called Nutritionism, which was developed by Gyorgy Scrinis but owes its fame to Michael Pollan. The idea of Nutritionism basically states the value of nutrition in a certain food depends on the nutritional value of each ingredient that makes up that food. Our Idea of good and bad nutrition is solely based on which ingredients are “good” or “bad.” So if a food has enough “bad” ingredients, we ultimately consider that food low in nutritional value. If a food has enough “good” ingredients, us as a society ultimately consider that food high in nutritional value, which means it, is healthy and is acceptable to eat. By these simplistic guidelines, we have become infatuated with getting good nutritional value out of our foods, which is certainly not a negative mindset to have. Although Nutritionism makes sense in my opinion, critics do have concerns about the Nutritionism. Some critics don’t necessarily believe that the total nutritional value comes from the sum of all its parts. They believe that this simplistic mindset could have harmful effects on the body and it can “distort our appreciation of food quality.”