Editor-in-Chief
In my eyes, DMACC student and cross country runner Anna-Kate Bruns seemed to be the pinnacle of health conscious athletes. When we had lunch together a few times over the past year, she ate an apple, some vegetables, a sandwich, and if she was thirsty, she either drank water or skim milk. So when it came time to pick an Honors project on healthy food for English Composition II, she was at the top of the list of people to talk to about what to eat and what not to eat.
“My diet is mostly made up of grapes, carrots, some spinach, protein bars, Greek yogurt, gluten-free grain products, Kashi cereal, chicken, turkey, egg whites, apples and other organic foods,” Bruns said.
In order to keep up with Bruns’ “health food speak,” I read Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food” and followed some common sense rules of my own.
The premise of Pollan’s book is that Western society has drifted from “real” foods like unprocessed fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy products in favor of “fake” foods like sodium benzoate, high fructose corn syrup, red 40, vitamin injected Lucky Charms, and microwave dinners. Pollan even criticized foods that made health claims, reasoning that if something needed to claim that it was healthy, it probably wasn’t. He also attacked the current trend of thinking of food in terms of its separate nutrients, calling it “nutritionism.”
Since I already knew that some athletes watched their weight religiously, counted carbohydrate and calorie intakes and bought foods with fat-free labels on them, I was curious to find out whether or not Bruns would agree with or laugh at Pollan’s statements. Regardless of whether she agreed or disagreed with Pollan’s stance, I hoped to persuade her of the book’s validity and possibly show her alternatives to foods that were not necessarily healthy.
During an interview with Bruns, she shared with me some of her beliefs about food.
“I eat what I do because, as an athlete, I don’t want to have to burn through all the extra stuff in processed foods,” Bruns said.
“I love apples. I go through about five or six of them a day,” she said. She added that she avoids eating sweets, processed foods, red meats, and going to restaurants for meals