| | |  | Nutrition | Home » » » » In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto | | | | | | | Description: | | 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. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9781594201455
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Michael Pollan | | Hardcover:
| 256 pages | | Publisher:
| Penguin Press HC, The | | Publication Date:
| 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1594201455 | | Package Length:
| 8.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.7 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.95 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 354 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Doesn't bring much to the tableMar 11, 2010
I was looking forward to this book, but ended up being disappointed and reselling my copy. I've been reading a number of food science books lately, and I was surprised to see that In Defense of Food mostly just references works I had already read, without bringing much new to the table. If this is your first book on the subject it might be a good primer, but if you've read T. Colin Campbell or Joel Fuhrman you can pass.
 If you care about what you eat and how you feel...Mar 07, 2010
Books, manuals, health guides, nutrition, DIET!!!!....what to eat!!!
Putting all of the above mentioned aside, this is a timely, essential guide to electing proper choices in our health and well being, not to mention our planet.
There is so much misinformation, trend diognostics, nutritional mumbo jumbo, warnings, supplementation, additives, chemicals etc.
It can really be so much more simple...
EAT FOOD, NOT TOO MUCH, MOSTLY PLANTS!
Value your eating time and selections, search it out, prepare and savor, appreciate and you will be healthier, happier and wizer.
This book will spur you on!
Refreshing Point of ViewMar 07, 2010
Most refreshing way of looking at the whole food, nutrition and diet point of view. Perfect for anyone wanting to eat for longevity and health, but confused by the plethora of diets out there. The journalistic approach allows a review of history, politics and facts regarding foods with most interesting conclusions.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Intelligent, Radical, TimelyMar 07, 2010
Unlike M. Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, this work is a real eye-opener, highly interesting, and likely to stimulate much overdue discussion, and wide-ranging changes. The mantra, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." is simple, intelligent, and ...... surprising, coming as it does from one who I had imagined to be a great lover/gorger of non-vegetarian fare.
Half way through the book I looked for Ayurveda and Macrobiotics in the index. The author had found no use for these systems, both of which have been prescribing pretty much the same rules of thumb about eating, and which have been quietly making inroads into western lifestyles since a number of decades. The difference is that for these philosophies alcohol would not be considered food. Intoxicant, yes, medicine, perhaps, but food? Indeed it's possible to argue that one thing that's very wrong with the western diet is alcohol, which is considered to be a drink. Scientists study what they can measure, and journalists see, and write about, what they want to see. Pollan chooses to see the "fact" that a glass or two of alcohol a day is good for health.
Pollan writes a good deal on the question of why we eat. One would have thought that it's pretty simple: we eat when the body is hungry; we drink when we feel thirst. Unlike us thinking types, when one watches an animal feeding, or a human baby on the breast, or an enlightened being eating or drinking, what we witness is communion. At the end of the book Pollan touches on this word. Perhaps this concept shall be the subject of a future work of his....
While reviewing The Omnivore's Dilemma I had predicted that M.Pollan was quite likely to go vegetarian sometime quite soon. This seems to be happening, although he has yet to be convinced that he needs to for reasons of health. Having been a lover of non-vegetarian food as well as alcohol previously, and a teetotaler vegetarian now, my own experience of enjoying much better well-being in this new way of life leads me to give this work a 4 rather than 5-star rating.
3 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 Not Real Science. Almost Crackpot Science, Be Careful...Mar 04, 2010
Whew, did I write that title? I read this book several times, and I have watched several of his interviews, and yes, he is knowledgeable and charming. In fact, I wanted him to be right and to be widely read. But, after many hard hours -- I have to say, no. He's on the Berkeley campus but he has pseudo-intellectual roots from Stanford, which is the worst elitist school in human history. Pollan in reality is just a very, very silly guy. He's a journalist by choice, which means he's not a real scientist, he does not understand real science, or the history of science. But his great sin is that he does not understand social history or class history or cultural history -- and the struggles and battles fought therein. What Pollan really is frightens me. He's a 19th century thinker. Which means his major fault is to be over-ingenious. He draws conclusions too hastily. He over intellectualizes because he thinks he's being cute or lovable. Yes, he salt and peppers his books with fascinating facts that we all need to know, but his books are not the best source for these necessary food facts, especially when those facts are accompanied by gross misunderstandings about human history, evolution and physiology. He makes grand statements but gets there on tenuous foundations. Example, he says corn has no consciousness then rants about its evolutionary intentions to take over. He's winking at us, but he doesn't understand that evolution means that everything corn does is arbitrary by definition. He doesn't get this, instead he uses all the co-incidents of attributes of plants to suggest a pattern of survival skills that show an intelligence by implication, and thereby there is in evidence this under thread or subtext throughout all his books that plants have an intelligent design -- which, in fact, is the very opposite of evolution. But, so what, why let this bother you, or me? Well, that's not all. In the first several chapters of this book or even in the first 15 minutes of his interviews -- you can count 3,4 or even 5 gaffs. Let's see, he says: (1) nutritionists don't really know anything; then (2) doctors don't understand the digestive system; (3) western diet causes all the diseases of later years; (4) corn syrup is killing us... etc., etc., etc. When in fact, these are all very complex and compound ideas and groups of ideas that Pollan lumps into these over broad assumptions and conclusions. The truth is this: Pollan is the one who doesn't understand. He's unstudied and a middle brow at best. He's popular now because people are worried, he's hit a nerve and will get rich, yes, over-ingenious and rich. Gee, I wish I had thought about that. Hmm... NO, It's really spoliation. Spoliation of difficult taxing subject matter which hasn't been given its rightful due. These topics are multilayered and require years of research to tackle just one of Pollan's many broad assumptions. I wish I had the time and space to tick off all of his mistakes. But here's just one example. Western diet and the spread of classic diseases attributed thereto is only corollary driven. There's no necessary foundational or cause and effect connection between the two. Heart disease and cancer are more prevalent as people age and our population has a much older center than the comparatives Pollan holds us up to. Family/tribal support and its dissipation have as much to do with these "western diet" diseases as does diet. Which came first the inability to digest well because of the loss of a nurturing supportive environment or the low quality of the thing being digested?
Moreover, many of the basic foods being discounted were the staples of human migration. Pollan does not count in lifestyle or lack thereof enough, which by itself can account for the set of western diseases associated with the western diet. Well, then again, there is something to eating cheap processed food, but that goes without saying. Pollan just muddies the waters with his endless 19th century over-philosophizing, without adequate basis in well established facts.
The best advice is, therefore, to find a better resource book for this vital topic, as the hubris of over achievement ruins this one.
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