Protein. Carbohydrates. Fat. Calories. That’s how we’ve been taught to think about what we eat. If we can only find the magical mix of macronutrient percentages, we’re told, we can achieve the health and aesthetic goals we’re after. Provided, of course, we stay within the upper bounds of our caloric intake limits.

There are many problems with this thinking, and I won’t address them all in this post. What I want to point out is how thinking about the individual nutrient components of our food (Nutritionism, as Michael Pollan likes to call it), removes eating from its context. Continue reading →