In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto | Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto | Michael Pollan | In Defense of "In Defense of Food"

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In Defense of Food...

	In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Michael Pollan Penguin Press HC, The, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 164 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." Writing In Defense of Food, and affirming the joy of eating, Pollan suggests that if we would pay more for better, well-grown food, but buy less of it, we'll benefit ourselves, our communities, and the environment at large. Taking a clear-eyed look at what science does and does not know about the links between diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about the question of what to eat that is informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach. In Defense of Food reminds us that, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, the solutions to the current omnivore's dilemma can be found all around us. In looking toward traditional diets the world over, as well as the foods our families-and regions-historically enjoyed, we can recover a more balanced, reasonable, and pleasurable approach to food. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.

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Fresh Perspective on Food

This is likely the most useful book I have read in a decade. Having grown up in the clean-your-plate-get-dessert era I greatly appreciate Pollan's fresh (pun accepted) perspectives on food and eating. Despite a medical background, I have long been perplexed by food and the many products now available that masquerade as food. If Pollan is right, it's not so complicated after all. This diligently-researched book explains the origins--government, food industry, junk science--and motivations behind commonly held myths about healthy and not healthy. He does a masterful job of presenting evidence, but avoids a know-it-all attitude common among so-called experts of the modern era. Though I find the evidence-based nutrition science to be fascinating, the book is filled with practical, applicable advice that anyone can understand, like Pollan's recommendation to avoid products with more than five ingredients or those with ingredients that are tough to pronounce. Though I still eat more than I should, I have drastically changed what I eat. More importantly I am using the book's concepts to gradually, persistently re-educate my high-fructose-corn-syrup-craving teenagers. Hopefully it's not too late.

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In Defense of "In Defense of Food"

I loved this book!

It takes a different perspective from Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemna". Here, Pollan is principally concerned about eating from a perspective of personal health/nutrition. Fortunately, the conclusion that he comes to is that someone who is thoughtful about their eating will make many of the same decisions whether their starting point is ecology, environment, personal health (and I'd add to the list labor rights and animal rights, much of the time). Yes, between all these different viewpoints, there are A FEW places where advocates might disagree, but it seems that a thoughtful eater will benefit all of these areas in general.

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Clear, entertaining, science-based

Just the kind of information I needed to clear up the murky questions I had about the american diet. A great book for every modern person to read.
AEmeryMD

our diets are sorely lacking because of the process Pollan labels "nutritionism."

Book Review:
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
New flash: When whole foods are broken down into their nutritional components and then reassembled as processed food, the new product is not nearly as beneficial to our health as the original. In the mid-twentieth century, who would have thought it? Weren't we sold on "better living though science?"
Well, as it turns out, our diets are sorely lacking because of the process Pollan labels "nutritionism." This reductionist way of thinking about food assumes that the key to understanding food is through the individual nutrients it contains. Wrong! Whole food is greater than the sum of its parts!
As a holistic chiropractor and a motivational speaker on health and wellness, I'm excited about Pollan's book. He discusses with clarity, supported by extensive research, something I've been advocating for years: a return to the Paleolithic diet of our ancestors 40,000 years ago! Pollan states it succinctly; Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Furthermore, eat mostly the leaves of the plants, not the seeds. What about meat? Meat is nutritious food, yet when it comes from a highly industrialized food chain, it brings with it extra chemicals and hormones that do not serve us well at all.
If you care at all about the food you ingest, buy this book and get out your highlighter! You'll want to mark passages to refer back to as you become pro-active with your diet!
Michael B. Roth, D.C.

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Over-Written And Preachy

Pollan starts his book with sage advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Any of Pollan's readers will know that what he means by "food" isn't what most of us eat. He means unprocessed locally produced food.
He spends a couple of hundred pages beating a dead horse about problems with scientific studies about what we should and shouldn't eat. He makes his point again and again and again. Nutritional studies are faulty. Food is more than the sum of its parts, and research about what we eat tries to reduce food to its nutrients, thereby enabling food processing companies to add and subtract what nutritional gurus are promoting at any given time.
To be healthy, he advises, eat traditional diets from virtually any area of the world, and avoid processed foods.
"The Omnivore's Dilemma" is a great book, that makes the points raised in this one, but is much better written.

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