Base Diets on Nutrition Facts

* Re “Our American Diet Divides Us Into Classes of Workers and Bosses,” Commentary, Sept. 4:

It’s hard to swallow the contention that differing marketing styles and demographics add up to a real political division. If we do “eat our class,” we do so less than we “drive our class” or “wear our class,” for example. The percentage of carbohydrate calories in a weight-loss diet is thin gruel indeed for such Marxist-style analysis.

The nutrition facts surrounding the two diets are more clear-cut than a true political controversy would be. Substantial scientific evidence ties the high fat content of the American diet to the cardiovascular disease and cancer responsible for most of U.S. mortality. Diet fads will come and go, but Ornish, Pritikin and other diets that encourage Americans to limit their calories, reduce saturated fat and increase fruit and vegetable consumption are on the right track.

DANIEL J. STONE MD, MPH

Beverly Hills

*

I was dreamily massaging my gums with my toothbrush when an awful truth hit me: Toothbrushes are political. There are hard ones and soft ones, and I had chosen soft. Not for me the hard-bristled brush, clearly designed for the strong fist of the coarse proletarian; no, the soft and silky model I had selected was obviously built for a slack, bourgeois mouth. And what about my choice of dental floss? Well, no need to bore with further examples, but you can see how these two English professors have carefully opened my eyes to the many signs symptomatic of a sick class structure. Teresa Ebert and Mas’ud Zavarzadeh write, “In eating food, we eat our class.” I’ll never choose my food (or diets) naively again, and even though I don’t teach, I’ll certainly never be tempted to eat my class.

JOHN DE JONG

Long Beach

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I am an omnivore and earn a high income. I can afford to eat junk food, fast food, fake food or gourmet food. All the food I eat tastes good to me, or I wouldn’t eat it. It isn’t how much it costs that counts but what I feel like eating. It isn’t my bourgeois mind-set about what I can afford that determines what I eat. It is a combination of what I crave, taste-wise, and how much damage I’m willing to inflict on my cardiovascular status.

HOWARD CAPLAN

Manhattan Beach