The American way of eating is doing far more harm to us than moderate alcohol consumption

I wasn’t planning to write anything this morning, but two stories about public health in The New York Times have got me thinking about proportionality, to use one of my friend Catherine Tumber‘s favorite words.

The first is an opinion piece about the American way of eating, which is making us sick and killing us. Julia Belluz writes in a guest essay about Bryce Martinez, whose intake of ultraprocessed foods started making him sick when he was a teenager. He sued 11 major food manufacturers, “arguing that the consumption of their products brought on his Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease in childhood.”

Belluz says:

Junk, Bryce realized, was a lot of the food he grew up on in Pennsylvania. Even the food that didn’t seem too bad. A bowl of cereal on the way out the door — marketed to kids, and sometimes advertising fiber and nutrients, but also high in sugar. At school, the lunches featured pizza, burgers and mac and cheese. Bryce’s parents tried to cook nutritious meals whenever they could, but they both had full-time jobs. When he arrived home before his parents got off work, he’d pull a can or box from the cupboard or freezer to heat in the microwave — more mac and cheese or a ready-to-heat meal. Juice pouches washed the meals down. Some of the food he snacked on — chips, ice cream — appeared to be designed so that he couldn’t stop eating. He used to blame himself for that.

Unfortunately, Martinez’s suit didn’t go anywhere. But as Belluz says, we are just at the beginning of understanding what we’re doing to ourselves. Too bad Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is giving all this a bad name.

The second story is about the damage to the economy and to social life resulting from a decline in drinking alcohol — a decline brought about, at least in part, because of medical research showing that alcohol is unsafe in any quantity. Ginia Bellafonte reports that the harm being done to the bourbon industry has become something of a crisis in Louisville, Kentucky, where the symphony orchestra is feeling a philanthropic pinch. She writes:

The realignment is testament to the power of messaging coming from various corners of the medical establishment, messaging that has convinced many Americans that even a few glasses of Sancerre a week can lead to serious illness and death. Three years ago, the World Health Organization declared that no amount of alcohol is safe. The push accelerated here in January 2025 when the United States surgeon general at the time, Vivek Murthy, warned that alcohol leads to a greater absorption of carcinogens, increasing the risk of at least seven types of cancer. Some figures in public health argue that enjoyment — the delight taken in drinking and the sociality it can afford — should not be overlooked. Their voices have had little influence.

All true, of course. I’m not saying that the case against alcohol isn’t based on sound science. On the other hand, drinking has been with us for millennia, and alcohol consumption in moderation is far safer than eating mass quantities of sugar, processed carbohydrates and all manner of mystery ingredients. Shouldn’t we focus on the real threat while understanding that many things we enjoy come with some risks?

Two related stories in today’s Times: some California winemakers are burning their vineyards because demand has dropped so much. And some California cities are banning drive-through restaurants. They’re doing it because of traffic, but if we could cut down on the practice of people eating fast food in their cars, it might be one small step toward healthier eating.