Quest for Clean Food

(Originally aired: Dec. 19, 2017) Guest: Ruth MacDonald, PhD, Professor and Chair of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State University Healthy food bloggers and authors like Michael Pollan encourage us to steer clear of food that contains ingredients we can’t pronounce. Aim for clean and simple foods is the mantra. So, something that contains glutamic acid, histidine, methionine, phytosterols and 2-hydroxy-3-methylethl would be a definite no-go right? Except the food I’m describing is a banana. And not even a genetically modified one. Iowa State University food science and human nutrition expert Ruth MacDonald says it’s not just short-sighted, it’s dangerous, to get too carried away with the whole “no chemicals, no preservatives” thing.