The Illusion called Nutrition

I was privileged enough to witness what will go down in history as one of the most momentous occasions in the short life that human beings have been on planet Earth; leave alone the even shorter life that nutrition has had as a field of science.

It was a press conference.

Us newspaper hacks knew nothing except that this gathering would bring together some serious heavyweights - I thought I’d retire that pun, but hey, this could be the last time I use it - there was the rotundly effete president of the Association of Health (commonly shortened to ‘Ah’. Ah.) There was the corpulently wishy-washy chairman of the multinational Nutritional Union of The States (NUTS), a body that had become the de facto substitute for the United Nations since obesity had grown to replace corporate imperialism as the greatest threat to humankind. And there were, of course, the leaders of the all the surviving nations, in their various homages to the spherical form and the ideal of inutility.

And then there were innumerable, indistinguishable men and women - a remarkable achievement, attaining indistinguishability so powerful you’re sexless - in identical suits and goggles and practiced deadpan expressions - representatives of the dominant ruling paradigm of the late twenty second century - corporatocracy. There were also, hunched fearful and rat-like in the shadows, the intellectual flag bearers from two centuries ago - men and women, consigned to the dregs of society for choosing to while their time away trying to answer irrelevant questions like how the world worked. Scientists, I believe they were called. If that lot were here, then surely everybody was, and this was going to be something big.

A loud harrumph broke the silence. Or would have, had there been silence. So it sort of half shushed the frenzied whispering.

Rows and rows of faces - both physical and electronic - looked up.

A second harrumph followed. ‘We,’ wheezed the portly figure of the President of Ah, cleverly called ‘Ah-man’.

‘We have gathered here to make an important announcement.’

A soundless sigh rustled through the room. Get on with it, Ah-man!

‘We have gathered here on this momentous day,’ Ah-man dithered, only to wince under the force of a million glares - some bleeding into the ultraviolet - and tighten his act, ‘to fold our hands in front of you and offer a heartfelt apology.’

‘We have spent many decades, centuries, aeons even, trying to convince everyone that we had the answers to the problem of happiness.’

‘Yes, it wasn’t always phrased like that but the pursuit of health, which we represented, only made sense if it was intimately tied to everyday happiness, and we worked our best to strengthen those ties.’

Looks were hastily exchanged, and there were the occasional collisions between face and monitor as a consequence. Ah-man trundled on.

‘We believed that the solution to obesity was nutrition science, and the solution to making people listen was to come up with an unchanging dogma of nutrition science. But that doesn’t quite work in the world of science, does it?’ Ah-man took off his $50,000 pair of vanity spectacles and rubbed his eyes with a certain cosmic weariness.

‘Yes, it doesn’t. One day, we would tell you to have heavy breakfasts. Studies would back this up, of course. The next, we would tell you that skipping breakfast was the key to a healthy work life balance. That too would be backed up by studies, of course, we’re methodic like that. And the day after, we’d tell you that skipping breakfast was bad, but it was equally bad to have breakfast immediately after waking up.’

‘We told you, for approximately four Gregorian centuries that more frequent, smaller meals were good. Studies had assured us - ‘ Ah-man paused, in a rare moment of self-awareness, and decided not to finish that sentence. ‘But then we started telling you that the number of meals you had didn’t really matter.’

‘We told you, for near about three score years that milk was essential for a healthy life. But we told you, for near about three - ‘ Ah-man looked askance at a raised hand in his entourage ‘ - or, as I was just corrected, four and a half score years that not drinking milk probably doubled your life span.’

'I think it's safest to not go into the gluten fiasco at all.' Agreeing titters erupted in the room.

‘We told you many things - and we told them like they were fact - and they were all wrong.’

Ah-man mopped a brow. Now there was silence, and the silence in the cavernous hall was absolute. A snoring mouse could have caused tinnitus.

‘We have now come to the conclusion that the field of nutrition science has been a well-intentioned but ultimately delusory pursuit. We have decided to relegate it to the same bookshelf as the religions of old, and various beliefs regarding black cats, mirrors, ladders and salt thrown over one’s shoulder. We have decided to retract everything we’ve told you so far, save one.’

The silence was now so sharp and the air was so heavy with tension that you could have floated an anorexic baby on an air current. I jiggled my ample belly in anticipation.

‘We have found out that the stress caused by the painstaking application required to sort through our numerous contradictory nutritional diktats would far offset any gains in health one may obtain by dutifully following said diktats.’

‘In other words, you’re likely to be far healthier and live longer, more fulfilling lives if you do not make any effort whatsoever to follow... anything.. we... say.’ Ah-man dragged himself through the last handful of words, like sprinting through treacle, and promptly burst out in a flood of tears.

Everyone else, well, corporeal or otherwise, it was said, made the twenty four hours that followed the announcement the biggest party humankind had ever seen. It was estimated that thirty three percent of everyone present suffered an aneurysm as a direct result of their ecstatic manoeuvrings. I didn’t know, as I’d promptly passed out as the result of a minor aneurysm.