Episode One
The Early Days:
An American Cuisine Emerges
Episode One: Introduces the viewer to the emergence of a new nation- and a new, distinctly American cuisine. Early settlers found on the shores of this new continent a veritable Eden- a land unspoiled and blessed with seemingly endless fertile lands, and immediately encountered indigenous peoples who had long mastered the ability to hunt, forage, grow and cultivate a wide variety of foods, all grown naturally and seemingly effortlessly. The writings of early colonists abound with wonder at the rivers teeming with fish, birds in Edenesque abundance, the forests filled with deer, and what emerged was a uniquely American ethic about the land, mixed with a pioneering spirit and a seemingly endless and often ruthless quest to “conquer” and exploit it, along with its indigenous inhabitants. In fact we see the first known instance of the paradoxical and deeply cynical use of food as an agent of war- by intentionally slaughtering the First Nation’s primary food source- the buffalo- as a way to starve them to death, while simultaneously destroying their way of life. This was all part of the policy, spoken and unspoken, known as “Manifest Destiny”- the innate entitlement of the overwhelmingly white European colonists to mold, shape, and conquer an entire continent- from sea to shining sea- with its vast, seemingly endless fertile prairies- long before they became “amber waves of grain”. Thus began an outlook that would carry over into all facets of the great American experiment. Episode One then turns to some important early American voices-in particular the great writer and Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who in his classic 1854 book, Walden, espoused the values of simple, honest living and an adherence to the examples of a good life grounded in the examples of nature.. Another great expounder of nature and food as a metaphor for living a full, and sensually awake life, was the early American poet, Walt Whitman.Finally, Episode One turns to the early writings and influence of some of the more important food-related religious-based beliefs as promoted by prominent voices such as Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science c. 1875) and Ellen G. White (her 1863- Counsels on Diet and Foods- became a kind of mission statement behind the early Adventist movement)- pointing out the connection between “the food we eat and our own physical and spiritual welfare”.The episode concludes with the notion that In essence all American food was originally organic and natural. Pesticides were unknown and not needed or desired. America’s early food choices all fit on the same plate. There was as yet no real split. But there were storm clouds brewing and hints of division ahead….
Episode Two
You Are What You Eat-
Sanitariums and Cereal Barons
Episode Two: takes us into the amusing and interesting world of the early 1900s and the three men who I call, “the cereal barons”: John Harvey Kellogg (of Battlecreek, Michigan fame), C.W. Post, and Sylvester Graham (the original graham crackers were billed as health foods) were fierce competitors (Post actually moved his rival cornflake enterprise to Battlecreek to directly compete with Kellogg). Kellogg, Post and Graham were among the very first entrepreneurs diving headfirst into the “health food business”. In fact, Kellogg opened and ran a world famous “sanitarium” where paying customers (including many of the wealthiest and foremost celebrities of the roaring ‘20s) went to “take the cure”- and submit themselves to the rigors of his spartan vegetarian diet and sexless lifestyle to cure themselves of “autointoxication”. (The 1994 comedy film, The Road to Wellville is based on T.C. Boyle’s hilarious spoof of Kellogg’s sanitarium and the shenanigans that went on there. Highly recommended.) This episode also covers “The Hygiene Movement” which was (and still is) an important approach to diet and health based on raw food vegetarian principles. It had numerous key advocates and spokespersons back in its heyday and is still highly regarded by some as a paragon of healthful living. This episode also covers the amazing Arnold Ehret, a charismatic and compelling lecturer and author who is still in print and who advocated “a mucusless healing diet”, “the grape cure”, and fasting, fasting, fasting. Ehret was a fascinating, magnetic/hypnotic character with a mesmerizing look and an almost devilish Van Dyke who stares out from his book covers to this day. (Ehret’s books were a big hit with many of the early hippie back-to-the landers in the late 60s and early 70s, when I was first exposed to him.)Keeping with the theme of the episode, we then turn to the early days of the budding (pun intended) vegetarian movement, which had many surprising and famous advocates and promoters.
Episode Three
Backlash:
Eat, Drink, and be Wary
Episode Three: Brings food- in particular the relatively newly promoted commercial foods -squarely in conflict with a newfound regulatory zeal to protect the public. This episode features the indominable Harvey W. Wiley, an early chemist and crusader for keeping newfangled contaminants- and potential poisons- out of the American food supply. Wiley headed up the “Bureau of Chemistry” the direct precursor to the present FDA and tirelessly campaigned against food additives, preservatives, and other nefarious chemicals. This marked the beginning of what came to be known as “food laws” – essentially trying to bring order- and accountability- to the heretofore wild west of commercial food- which was strongly suspected of being a major threat to the health of an unsuspecting public in need of protection. This episode (along with some of Episode Two) really marks the beginning of the “split” in the American diet- legally as well as philosophically. This episode also mentions the great early twentieth century muckraking journalist, Upton Sinclair, who was an ardent vegetarian activist in addition to some of his other notable views. His famous bestseller, The Jungle (published in 1906) highlighted the horrendous conditions in the nation’s meatpacking industry, and directly led to the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and the Federal Meat Inspection Act (1906). This episode then looks at “arsenic apples and lead fruit” which highlights further the changes brought by the earliest versions of pesticides- and further highlighted the distinction between naturally grown vs adulterated foods for an increasingly worried and vigilant population. The book, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs by Arthur Kallet and F.J. Schlink, (1933) with the telling subtitle, Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics further testifies to the widening split between health-conscious consumers and the corporate profit motives and outright negligence of emerging companies and brands. Next, the “sleeping prophet” the great seer and clairvoyant, Edgar Cayce is looked at for his contributions and “channeled” insights into healthy food and eating. Finally, the infamous Flexner report is mentioned, which was a commissioned “hatchet job” by the young AMA against the homeopathists. While not directly food related, the Flexner report underscores the growing divide and jockeying for power and influence in America that would have repercussions for food and natural lifestyles for decades to come.
Episode Four
Early Nutrition:
A Science Emerges
This episode is a fun dive into the rapidly and newly developing science of nutrition that really began to take off in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The episode begins with a look at the world travels of Weston Price, dentist and author who wrote the extremely influential book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, in 1939. Price traveled around the world, taking photographs and measurements of people’s mouths, documenting and comparing the dental health of people around the world eating traditional (healthier) diets versus their counterparts in cities eating “modern” foods, with a lot of sugar and white flour. The book is still in print and influential to this day. Next we turn to the fascinating journey of hard work and scientific sleuthing that led to the discovery of the major vitamins. Huge quantities of raw foods had to be painstakingly teased apart to isolate the seemingly magical “vital amines” that were thought to prevent many diseases, including beri beri, scurvy, and others. Equally interesting is how the early natural vitamins were marketed, sold, and advertised as miracle cures. I call this segment “Hope, hype, and the nutrition revolution”. The next portion of this episode covers “the naysayers”- the corporate-conflicted hired guns of the sugar industry, including the infamous Frederick Stare, chair of the nutrition department at Harvard University, and defender and advocate of eating more , not less sugar, as a healthy food. Shameless corporate shills such as Stare and Victor Herbert represented the junk food and fast food industry’s “counter offensive” against the claims of the health foodists as they pitched an unrelenting war against the health food movement, ridiculing vitamins and healthy foods at every opportunity.Continuing the theme started by mentioning sugar, we then look at the history, development and promotion of the first artificial sweeteners; first, the chemical called sodium cyclamate (present in the very first “diet” soda, Tab, (and quickly pulled due to its strong cancer causing effects) and then sodium saccharin, similarly shown to be carcinogenic and dangerous. Now we have aspartame, aka, “Nutrasweettm” which is well researched for its neurotoxic effects on the brain and which is a probable contributor to the epidemic of ADD and other learning and behavioral disabilities we encounter in such large numbers these days. Trying to “fool mother nature” by inventing artificial sweeteners turns out to have been a colossal mistake! As the saying goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”!Finally this episode looks at two of the greatest scientific minds to ever wrestle with nutrition- Linus Pauling (the only person to ever win two Nobel prizes) and his compatriot, Roger Williams, both brilliant chemists. Pauling would go on to look at the amazing importance and health benefits of mega doses of vitamin C, and Williams would pioneer the groundbreaking insight known as “biochemical individuality”. Both scientists lived healthily and productively well into their 90s, practicing what they preached!
Episode Five
A Fast Food Nation Arrives:
the Split Widens
This episode starts with a look at “Golden Arches and Drive-Ins”- the transformation of the American automobile-centric landscape into a unique, newly American style of food consumption in the 1950s. Voila, behold the birth of the “fast food nation”, the defining ethos of modern food to this day! This episode focuses a lot on California. We travel to “Muscle Beach” the Southern California body-building culture that fully embraced health food in the 40s, 50s and early 60s in a whole new way. Hollywood quickly got on board, with famous actors and actresses joining the health (and youth-prolonging and beauty- promoting) virtues of natural eating. Notable Hollywood healthy eating pioneers Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo among others, and the health and fitness gurus, Jack LaLanne, his teacher Paul Bragg, Gypsy Boots, and the influential California Naturopath, Bernard Jensen are also among those “eccentrics, fanatics, and visionaries”.A big focus of this episode goes to the iconic California nutrition author, tireless advocate, and nutrition guru extraordinaire, the one and only Adelle Davis, and her books and writings, who single handedly kept the flickering flame of nutrition alive “in the shadow of the giants”. Davis’s writings would go on to be highly influential to the first hippie experimenters. This episode also looks at the ever widening split as we look at, on the one hand, diet Tab, Tang, baloney, Ovaltine and TV dinners and on the other, the first true “superfoods”- bee pollen, wheat germ, carrot juice, nutritional yeast, and others. This was the era where chemical "manipulation" of foods really became widely available to the majority of Americans, who began consuming chemicals such as hydrogenated vegetable oils, monosodium glutamate, and a whole array of artificial and additive-filled foods as well as fluoridated water, soft-drinks and a huge uptick in sugar consumption.
Episode Six
The Beat Goes On:
The 60s Go ‘Back to Eden’-
and the Plate Splits Open
Episode six opens with a look at the cultural phenomenon of the hippies and “the back to the land” movement with its experimental communes and exploration of all things natural and alternative, including growing, cooking, and eating food. An important guide book for many of society’s drop outs was the still-in-print 1939 book, Back to Eden.We then look at the remarkable lives and example of Helen and Scott Nearing, a successful intellectual couple (Scott was a Socialist economics professor at a university in New York in the 1920s and 1930s) who were among the first “drop outs” who left New York city life behind and moved to rural Vermont and built and homesteaded to show that one could live a life of meaning and value without compromise. Helen wrote about their lifestyle, (of which growing and putting up naturally grown food was a key component) in several books that were avidly read and studied by many hippies, called Living the Good Life along with several others. Over the years, many hippies made the pilgrimage to Vermont to study and pay homage to these elder mentors.Other important influences and natural food and lifestyle promoting resources of the times were the magazines, Mother Earth News, the Whole Earth Catalog, and the Rodale publications including the iconic Organic Gardening and Farming, which counted both hippies and “straight” folks alike from all across mainstream America who were into having home gardens and orchards. Rodale had everyone eating off the same plate!This episode then looks at some other influential health food related events of the times, including the landmark publications of the books, Sugar Blues and the enormously important books, Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe, and Baskin and Robbins scion and anti-dairy vegetarian advocate John Robbins’ Diet for a New America. Lappe’s book for example, was the first to demonstrate the concept of complementary protein coming from different vegetarian sources, showing that a vegetarian diet could provide similar amino acid profiles to meat. It was nothing less than a revelation and a true sensation and fueled a huge boost in the credibility of vegetarianism as a valid way of life.This episode also touches on the Macrobiotic revolution- and the import of traditional Japanese health foods including soon-to-become staples including brown rice, tofu, and seaweed- oh my!The episode on the 60s concludes with a look at the Celestial Seasonings story- from humble beginnings in Boulder, Colorado to herbal tea empire and forerunner of so many new entrepreneurial ventures in the health food world.
Episode Seven
The Greening of America:
Organic Agriculture
and Plant-Based Nutrition
This episode opens with an extensive visit to Emmaus, Pennsylvania, home for many, many years of the Rodale Institute, ground zero for the organic farming movement. This episode will focus on the many pioneers-farmers, agriculturists and soil scientists- who bucked the chemical system- and today’s food scientists, and progressive, organic agriculturalists who are championing and paving the way for an ever more organic future for food production. A look at modern chemical intensive agriculture will provide insight into the dramatic “split” in these two diametrically opposed agricultural growing philosophies. Rachel Carson's 1962 classic warning about DDT, Silent Spring is featured as well as the publishing empire of J.I. Rodale and the writings of other prominent environmental voices such as Aldo Leopold and his influential Sand County Almanac.
The second half of this episode will focus on the history of the American herbal/botanical healing movement as well as key spokespeople and influencers in the contemporary plant-based food movement. We will also feature prominent herbalists (such as Boulder based herbalist and author Brigitte Mars) , entrepreneurs and botanical (plant medicine) experts including leading mushroom (for food and medicine) expert, Paul Stamets as well as medical and nutrition gurus such as Andrew Weil, M.D.
Episode Eight
The Future of Food
In our final episode, we explore where we are heading- as individuals, as a movement, as a civilization- and as a planet. We start with a look at the mega phenomenon of Factory Farms- behemoth operations that are fueled by corporate chemicals, GMOs, and the cultural ignoring of animal suffering on an unimaginable industrial scale. We also take a look at the overall health of the oceans- and their "carrying capacity" to withstand the threats they face from overfishing to industrial pollution. We then look at how organic has moved from "the margins to the mainstream"- what I call “Whole Foods eats the world”. In a similar vein we see how that most conservative and quintessentially American shopping phenomenon that is Costco has wholeheartedly embraced organic foods as part of their corporate mission.
Next, we cover the big latest and current trends in health and food: Paleo, Gluten-free, Keto, Raw, Intermittent Fasting and others… and ask the inevitable question, “where are we heading? ”The “new”trition- the interface of genomics, food, and health- and an interview with Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., Mark Hyman, M.D. and others -rounds out our look at where we are at and where we are headed.
Finally we take a look at “The World Peace Diet” by Dr. William Tuttle, Ph.D., which is a compassion-based (i.e. vegetarian/vegan style) diet that might be the defining question and answer for the 21st century- and beyond. Lastly we conclude with perhaps the most important and most basic questions- stated as “Small is Beautiful- but can it feed a hungry planet?”
