Bitter fruits

IN HIS book “In Defence of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”, Michael Pollan urged people to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Although a paltry 2.7% of Americans have a “healthy lifestyle”, according to the Mayo Clinic, their diets are improving. A recent study by researchers at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, tracking changes in eating habits between 1999 and 2012, suggests that Americans are nibbling more whole fruits, nuts and seeds, and gulping fewer sugary drinks, than they were in the fairly recent past. But the study also revealed that the gap between the diets of rich and poor seems to be widening.