Health Yummies

The world is amazed at the way we Americans overhaul our menus on the basis of medical theories. One generation, we’re anxious to get enough protein and sneer at “starch”; the next, “simple carbohydrates” are all-important.

The only consistent thing is our way of turning health foods into pleasure foods. One of the first American dietary reforms was Sylvester Graham’s exaltation of whole wheat flour. Graham intended “Graham flour” to replace white flour for bread and all other purposes, but it only survives in Graham crackers, and we mostly use them for making rich pie crusts. Graham would have a fit.

Diet reformers also wanted people to start the day with cereal, rather than the traditional breakfast of ham, eggs, beefsteak and pie. So we started eating cereal. And then we started sweetening and enriching it, and now we have chocolate cereals. (Granola, that talismanic food of ‘70s health foodies, is so rich it’s essentially a crumbled cookie.)

In the early ‘60s, the nutrition of a potato was said to be in the skin, so a whole cuisine grew up around potato skins . . . covered with all sorts of rich toppings. Yogurt was a challenge until we sweetened it (totally shocking Middle Eastern people who grew up on tart yogurt), and now most Americans think of yogurt as a dessert.