Modernist-Cuisine-Vol.-1-Small

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The soybean is one of the cornerstones of
vegetarianism and comes in many forms,
including edamame (fresh soybean),
mature dried soybean, tofu (see page
4·102), soy milk (see page 4·56), yuba (see
page 4·115), and soy protein flour. Soy can
be an important source of protein, which is
often scarce in vegetarian diets. Soy also
contains lecithin, an important emulsifier
(see page 4·214).
Vegetarianism
All vegetarians avoid eating the flesh of animals,
but some restrict their diets further. Vegans do not
consume any animal products at all. They obtain
protein primarily from legumes. Lacto-ovo
vegetarians eat dairy products and eggs. Ovo
vegetarians eat eggs but not dairy products. Lacto
vegetarians eat dairy products but not eggs. Then
there are semivegetarians, who eat only certain
kinds of animal flesh and avoid all other kinds.
Some people, for example, eat poultry and fish, but
not red meat.
It is difficult to determine scientifically whether
excluding animal products from one’s diet conveys
health benefits because the people who choose
vegetarianism generally are more health- conscious
than their meat-eating peers, as illustrated by their
choice to restrict what they eat. For a study to
demonstrate convincingly that vegetarianism is
a healthier choice, it must also account for the
lower rates of smoking and drinking and higher
rates of exercise among vegetarians than among
their peers.
As of this writing, no randomized, controlled
clinical trials have investigated the effects of
vegetarianism on healthy people in the long term.
But some small trials have tried to gauge such
a diet’s effect on heart disease and diabetes. Dean
Ornish, M.D., developed an extremely low-fat,
vegetarian diet and lifestyle intervention to treat
heart artery blockages. Patients who followed his
plan enjoyed less-clogged arteries and fewer heart
attacks than patients in the control group, who
suffered more than twice as many heart-related
ailments.
In another study, people with diabetes who ate
a vegan diet experienced fewer peaks and dips in
blood sugar concentrations than did those who ate
the traditional diet recommended for diabetics.
Unfortunately, as we have seen, it can be problematic
to generalize from small-scale studies.
Whether these results would hold up in large prospective
randomized studies is anybody’s guess.
One thing that is certain about vegetarian diets
is that they are high in fiber and low in saturated
fats, two characteristics that studies have associated
with a lower body mass index (BMI). Moderate
BMIs are, in turn, associated with lower rates of
heart disease and diabetes. But as we have also
seen, saturated fat seems uncorrelated with
cardiovascular disease.
On the other hand, vegetarians sometimes
suffer from a lack of protein in their diets, which
one study has associated with a higher incidence
of wrist fractures in menopausal women. Another
study of more than 9,000 vegetarian women found
that semivegetarian and vegetarian women reported
more menstrual problems, anemia, iron
deficiency, depression, and anxiety than their
nonvegetarian counterparts.
That correlation does not necessarily indicate
that a vegetarian diet is to blame for these troubles.
It may be that people with physical and
mental health issues turn to restrictive dietary
systems like vegetarianism as part of their search
for relief from their ailments. Until a carefully
designed, large-scale, long-term intervention
study is completed, there is no sure way to know
whether health issues lead to vegetarianism or
vice versa.
Organic Food
Many devotees of organic foods have the perception
that these foods are healthier because they are
all-natural, grown without chemical fertilizers,
pesticides, or herbicides. And yet we are aware of
no scientific study that has proven that man-made
agricultural chemicals result in harm to people
who buy and consume nonorganic fruits, vegetables,
meats, or prepared foods.
Exposure to large amounts of agricultural
chemicals can be dangerous, to be sure (and
environmental consequences are outside the scope
of this discussion), but there is a notable lack of
scientific evidence that consumers are suffering
deleterious health effects from any exposure they
might get to agricultural chemicals from the usual
methods of food preparation and ingestion.
In fact, sometimes it is the plants themselves
that cause harm because they have evolved a series
of toxic responses to being eaten by pestspests
that agricultural chemicals would have eliminated.
If organically grown plants are stressed by insect
infestation, for example, they may produce higher
amounts of toxins (see Natural Toxins on page
249). These toxins repel pests naturally, but they
are not necessarily safe for ingestion by humans.
Organic farmers have made ingenious use of
such “natural” pesticidesfor example, using
tobacco to make a sort of nicotine-laced infusion
that is sprayed on plants to kill aphids. The irony
here is that nicotine has been well studied and
shown to be poisonous to humans. Yet it is allowed
for treating organic foods because it is
“natural,” whereas pesticides that are actually
much safer and less toxic to humans are not
allowed. This doesn’t make much sense.
There are other examples. Legal loopholes in
the definition of “organic” mean that organic
farmers are allowed to use other powerfully toxic
pesticides such as pyrethrum and rotenone, which
has been linked to Parkinson’s disease in humans.
These compounds meet the criterion for organic
labeling because they are extracted from plants
but that doesn’t make them any less potentially
harmful to humans than other pesticides are.
Billions of dollars in revenue ride on the ability
of manufacturers to claim their food is “organic.”
One of the fastest-growing sectors in the food
business in recent years has been the manufacture
of organic versions of most food ingredients. A
so-called organic muffin is leavened with baking
soda, which is, scientifically speaking, an inorganic
substance (not a product of a living thing).
Baking soda is purified by a process that surely is
chemical in nature, and frankly you don’t want to
forgo that step because it eliminates potentially
hazardous contaminants.
The definition of organic also affords loopholes
for table salt, nigari (magnesium salts used in
making tofu), and other ingredients that have
manifestly chemical origins or purification steps.
Even novel-sounding ingredients used in
Modernist cuisine, many of which have been used
in industrial-scale food production for decades,
are available in certified organic form (see Modernist
Ingredients, page 250). Most organic
proponents would consider some of these ingredientshydrocolloid
gums, modified starches,
For more on natural toxins produced by edible
plants themselves, see Plants as Food, page
3·262.
Organic food has moved from the farmer’s
market to big business. Processing plants
such as this one in Arizona are a symbol
of the organic food movement’s explosive
growth in recent years.
244 VOLUME 1 · HISTORY AND FUNDAMENTALS
FOOD AND HEALTH 245