~Guest Post by MRS

Celebrity experts seem to be everywhere these days. They don’t just give interviews on their lives and latest projects; instead they seem to have some kind of agenda they’re trying to advance as they go on talk shows.

I first started wondering about this phenomenon during the 2008 presidential campaign. Several celebrities were very vocal in supporting certain candidates and even went on the media circuit and campaign trail proclaiming why their candidate was more qualified than the other candidate. As I watched and heard the interviews I wondered what made these celebrities more informed and more qualified to influence public opinion than me or any other average citizen.

And now that I am paying more attention to food and farming, I’ve noticed the same thing happening with the agriculture industry. Are celebrities just privy to more information than I am and therefore more educated about what we should and shouldn’t be eating or do they just have a better platform than I do to spread their (potentially misguided) beliefs?

Are there "experts" influencing your thinking?

The most recent celebrity to tell us what we should and shouldn’t eat has been Suzanne Somers. Her logic seems faulty at best, but that doesn’t seem to stop people from believing her. Why is that? Is it just because she’s a celebrity? Does being a celebrity automatically mean she is more informed, more educated than the rest of the population? I think not. It just seems that many of us have lost our critical thinking skills. For example, one of the things Ms. Somers has said is that the antibiotics in corn-fed beef kill the good bacteria in our “gut” leaving only the bad bacteria, which causes “leaky gut syndrome.” I am not a doctor, but in my experience with antibiotics I have learned that I usually take them when I am sick to kill bad bacteria, so if the antibiotics in meat are killing good bacteria wouldn’t they also be killing the bad bacteria that supposedly causes this “leaky gut syndrome?”

Then this week, Michael Pollan (of Food, Inc. fame) is going to be on Oprah – again. Of course, Mr. Pollan is an advocate for eating local foods and knowing where our food comes from and has very strong opinions about what is good for all of us to eat. But what are his credentials? Sure, Pollan was a part of Food, Inc. and  has written books, but to my knowledge, that doesn’t make him an expert. I even “googled” him just to make sure he didn’t have some credentials that I was unaware of, but he doesn’t. He is an author, activist, journalist and professor, but Pollan is not a nutritionist, a dietitian, a doctor, a scientist or a farmer. Yet so many people believe him!

What makes Pollan more qualified than you or I to make an informed decision about the kinds of foods that are best for us? Again, I think people just aren’t using their critical thinking skills, they just watch Food, Inc. or watch Mr. Pollan on TV and make a decision based on fear. If you’ve ever watched Food, Inc., it is scary. I watched it and my first reaction was horror at what I was feeding my family and that I should change our diet and the kinds of foods I buy. Then I talked with HandyMan and we thought critically about what we had seen and suddenly it wasn’t so scary.

But I have an advantage over a lot of people. I am part of a farming family. Currently HandyMan’s family only farms corn and soybeans, but they also raised hogs while HandyMan was growing up. I also grew up around farming – my best friends from high school raised beef cattle. I have the opportunity to ask my questions to people who know how our food is really produced –the chemicals, hormones and medicines that are actually involved the process. It certainly makes it easier to make an educated decision versus a decision based on fear or celebrity misinformation when I know actual farmers to talk to.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people in this country do not have that luxury. Not only do they not know a farmer to talk to about how their food is produced, but the only message they’re hearing on the news or in the media in general is that food produced via conventional farming methods is unhealthy and potentially unsafe. I encourage you, if you are a farmer talk to people about what you do and why you do it. If you’re not a farmer and have questions about your food, find a farmer to talk to. Michele has a great list of farm & ranch blogs – use them to find out how modern farmers are taking care to produce high-quality safe foods.

Hungry for more? Related posts:
Antibiotics in Food?
Dr. Oz, Food and Urban Legends
Local Food, Locavores & Hungry People