{ 2008.05.28 }
From Thoreau’s Walden (p. 12 of the Barnes and Noble edition):
One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.
Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food would have us believe that despite the nearly 200 years of scientific advances since this passage was written, we’re just as confused about nutrition as we always were, if not more so. He’s probably right.