Mark Bittman, “Is ‘Eat Real Food’ Unthinkable?,” The New York Times, February 8, 2011

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman tackles the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s (USDA’s) latest dietary guidelines in this opinion piece claiming
that “the agency’s nutrition experts are at odds with its other mission: to
promote our bounty in whatever form its processors make it.” According
to Bittman, the guidelines are clearest when promoting “good” foods like
fresh produce, but become “vague” when describing what not to eat, often
resorting to scientific language and acronyms like SOFAS—Solid Fats and
Added Sugars—“to avoid offending meat and sugar lobbies.”

“The [USDA] can succeed at its conflicting goals only by convincing us that
eating manufactured food lower in SOFAS is ‘healthy,’ thus implicitly endorsing
hyper-engineered junk food with added fiber, reduced and solid fats and so
on, ‘food’ that is often unimaginably far from its origins,” opines Bittman. “The
advice people need is to cook and eat more real food, at the expense of the
junk served in most restaurants and take-out places.”