Pages: 201
Rating: G
Summary:
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.
My Thoughts: This book was a real eye-opener. Basically, the author argues that we are so obsessed with nutrients, and so focused on the one magical thing that will make us healthier (less fat, lower carbs, more omega 3's) that we have forgotten the fact that we're not eating nutrients, we're eating food. And a whole food is more than just the sum of its parts. Pollan basically tells us that the entire Western diet is flawed. Diets from other cultures, as diverse as they may be, inevitably create healthier human beings than our diet does.
And it's more complicated than just buying more healthy foods. Since we are part of a food chain, what our food sources eat is important too. The soils our food comes from are starting to become less nutritious, which is bad for our cows, which then results in meat that isn't as nutritionally healthy.
There are definitely some really good points in this book. I'm not sure that I'm convinced that I need to go buy everything organic, as the author suggests, but I will say that I am more wary of how many weird ingredients crop up in my food, and that I am more determined to eat more fruits, veggies, and stuff made from scratch at home, where I know what exactly is in it.
I guarantee that if you read this, the way you look at food and the way you eat will change significantly. It's a fascinating, and very easy read. Some of the nutrient science was a bit over my head, but I still got the main idea. He ends the book with a series of tips of how to be a better eater, so don't think that the book is just condemning your current eating style. Some of his tips include:
-Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food
- Avoid anything with a health claim
- Avoid anything with more than five ingredients, or with ingredients you don't recognize.
- Eat mostly plants, especially leaves
Those are just a taste. You'll have to read the book. It was really a good one!
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