In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

published	January 1st 2007 by Penguin Press HC, The
first published	2008
binding	Hardcover
isbn	1594201455 (isbn13: 9781594201455)
pages	205
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." T...more [close] 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. [close]
date added	03-12-07 edit book

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Amy rated it:

03/04/08

Read in February, 2008

In the Buddhist tradition there is a level of hell whereby the dead, known as hungry ghosts, are trapped with enormous stomachs and tiny throats unable to swallow anything but the smallest bites of food. Their particular brand of torture is that they are always eating and yet their hunger is never satisfied. These hungry ghosts sound an awful lot like the modern American eater trapped in the unhealthy western diet demonized in Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

Y...more In the Buddhist tradition there is a level of hell whereby the dead, known as hungry ghosts, are trapped with enormous stomachs and tiny throats unable to swallow anything but the smallest bites of food. Their particular brand of torture is that they are always eating and yet their hunger is never satisfied. These hungry ghosts sound an awful lot like the modern American eater trapped in the unhealthy western diet demonized in Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

You may be surprised that anyone felt they needed to defend food, since we all rely on it to survive. But Pollan makes a clear distinction between the processed food-like substances that fill our grocery aisles in glistening packages and real foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and unprocessed, natural foods. Pollan argues that we eat way too much of the fake stuff, ignoring the foods that our bodies actually need. Like the hungry ghosts, we just never feel satisfied. At a clipping pace, Pollan examines both the field of nutritional science and the industrialization of food to show the reader just how we got to our particular brand of hell. Then, thankfully, he offers us a way out.

Instead of being hungry ghosts, Pollan tells us we can practice thoughtful consumption. He argues that the onslaught of nutritional science has taken the expertise out of the kitchen and into the laboratory, and too often isolates nutritional elements from the whole food that bore it. Any of us who keep up on nutritional trends will be shaking our heads when he discusses the familiar irritation of being told this week to eat one thing and avoid another, only to be told later that we had it right the first time. Instead of offering us a new trend in dieting, his solutions are both revolutionary and literally as old as time. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Pollan argues we should eat like our ancestors, before diabetes and heart disease reigned supreme and before high fructose corn syrup became more popular to the American consumer than television. Despite the dire evidence he presents in the book, his voice remains jocular and never dips into pessimism, though I did as a reader once or twice.

Even if you are not a health nut, Pollan makes a good argument for adopting his method of eating. The benefit of this thoughtful consumption is more than nutritional. The eater will be practicing a lifestyle of environmental stewardship, optimal health, and respect for the time required to grow and prepare the food necessary for life.

The book, addictive as those processed foods Pollan does such a powerful job of damning, is difficult to put down, in part because you don’t want to stop to eat anything until you know what you are supposed to eat after all. The only caveat is that In Defense of Food offers so little compromise between the western lifestyle and the lifestyle Pollan requires the eater to adopt, which just may be the reality of the current food paradigm. Maybe eating well is a revolutionary act in these times of microwavable meals and fast food paragons. When you buy food it is no longer a given that it is real food, and you may have to be willing to make some major changes in your lifestyle to get the real food back onto your table and into your stomach.
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Ginny rated it:

04/01/08

Read in March, 2008

Actually, there is enough good stuff in this book that it probably warrants another star or two. But I was so alarmed at the amount of misinformation here that I can’t bring myself to say that the book is “okay.”

Michael Pollan is right about some of the big stuff. Nutrition research is badly flawed. It has sometimes led us down the wrong road (although it has also provided life-saving findings). The government is far too slow to change its recommendations and has strong ties (to p...more

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Patadave rated it:

07/19/08

I’m a huge fan of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, (see review here) but only a big fan of In Defense of Food. The first two sections of Defense, “The Age of Nutritionism,” and “The Western Diet and Diseases of Civilization” fit perfectly with Omnivore’s posture of investigative journalism. While Omnivore included Pollan as a character, it came across as a non-biased, or relatively low-biased, intro to the foodstuffs served across America. The first two sections of Defense ad...more I’m a huge fan of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, (see review here) but only a big fan of In Defense of Food. The first two sections of Defense, “The Age of Nutritionism,” and “The Western Diet and Diseases of Civilization” fit perfectly with Omnivore’s posture of investigative journalism. While Omnivore included Pollan as a character, it came across as a non-biased, or relatively low-biased, intro to the foodstuffs served across America. The first two sections of Defense adhere to this even-handed journalistic method, but the final section, “Getting Over Nutritionism,” slips into more assertion and weaker argument and investigation.

Pollan is upfront about the final third of this book. He refers to his suggestions as “eating algorithms.” He doesn’t recommend what you should eat, but what you should think about before you eat. Mostly I agree with him, but there are few people in the United States who can live, and eat, the way Michael Pollan does. Lesisurely dinners prepared from foods out of your home-grown garden sounds like a great way to live, but re-arranging one’s life to create space to eat well may be impossible for most.

That said, there’s still a bushel of great advice in this book. Even if you can’t afford the time to grow your own garden, or eat every lunch gathered with friends and family, you will at least come away with an understanding of why eating anything that says “low-carb,” “low-fat,” “enriched,” or “fortified” is probably a bad idea.

In Omnivore Pollan researched where our food comes from. In Defense his research starts with asking why we think about food the way we do. Why are Americans obsessed with cholestrol, trans-fat, omega-3, and omega-6? What do nutrients have to do with food?

Pollan pulls together several threads that brought us to the nutrient-obsessed culture we have today. Three of these threads are lobbyists, scientists, and nutritionists. Together this triumvirate has eradicated any common sense about food that might have once been found in this nation. That this is a particularly national problem is very much a part of Pollan’s argument. Other cultures have long histories that have allowed them to create food cultures promote health. The French paradox ceases to be a paradox when you consider the culture that surrounds eating, and the hundreds of generations that have contributed to creating foods, and ways of eating, that combine in healthful ways.

Not only is the United States, a melange of many cultures, lacking this kind of food tradition, but it also suffers from a technophilia that rose to dominance in the 20th century and made it seem like science could solve every problem. Chemists began analyzing food to see what made it tick, and nutritionists began promoting these ingredients/nutrients as ways of achieving health. If Wonder Bread can be enriched what does it matter that it’s made out of processed flour and a little extra sweetener? A lot, according to Pollan.

When early nutritionism didn’t really work as advertised nutritionists did more research and uncovered micronutrients. Once micro-nutrients were discovered, they argued that now food chemists could mix and match ingredients to promote perfect health. Unfortunately, it seems like everytime a nutrient was thought to help or hurt later research overturned these findings. Pollan argues that this rises out of the simplified way of doing research. While nutritional research may be correct for a single ingredient it couldn’t predict how the ingredients all worked together in the food, or in relation to a human body. Food, and our relationship with food, is far too complex to be reduced to a simple formula.

Pollan’s argument persuaded me. Especially reading the two books in conjunction.

One of the pleasant things about reading Pollan is that he doesn’t take the tone of a scolding moralist in his writing. There is no right answer or rigid formula you must follow to health, only some thoughtfully considered common sense which he sums up in the opening of the book. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” The rest of the book explains why the American diet is not really food, but food-like products, and why Americans continue to eat long after they’ve consumed more than enough to meet their nutritional needs.

Pollan’s perfect world of eating that he tries to conjure up in the last third of the book will probably never make it into most people’s daily lives. But, that shouldn’t stop anyone from striving. Even if you’re not eating green beans out of your own garden, you can still eat more fruit and vegetables and less meat. There are common-sense strategies for eating that seem to have been forgotten. In Defense of Food is a great reminder that food should lead to health, not type-2 diabetes....less

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James rated it:

03/10/08

Read in March, 2008

I am deeply ashamed, depressed, and embarrassed by the fact that such a book as Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food need be written, much less published, critically acclaimed, and enjoyed by someone such as myself. Pollan himself acknowledges the perverse state of affairs saying, “That one should feel the need to mount a defense of ‘the meal’ is sad, but then I never would have thought ‘food’ needed defending, either.”

We should be collectively mortified as a culture because tho...more

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Andy rated it:

02/25/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in February, 2008

**My full review is posted on my blog at: http://citingthetext.blogspot....

Michael Pollan summarizes his latest book, published January 2008, on the cover and in just seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He admits on the very first page that he has pretty much "given the game away" with that summary, but that he plans to complicate matt...more **My full review is posted on my blog at: http://citingthetext.blogspot....

Michael Pollan summarizes his latest book, published January 2008, on the cover and in just seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He admits on the very first page that he has pretty much "given the game away" with that summary, but that he plans to complicate matters a bit in the interest of "keeping things going for a couple hundred more pages." Since I began the book at the start of a four hour bus ride, I chose to oblige him and see what could possibly so complicated about such simple commands.

I came to realize two things by the time I got about halfway through the book - which, ironically, was about the same time that the bus stopped at a Burger King. The first was that there was much more to the book than simple recommendations; the second was that those seven words were not so simple after all.

Take, for example, the first two words of Pollan's credo: Eat food. Not so hard, you say. False. By Pollan's definition, much of the offerings in an average grocery story are not in fact "food" but rather "edible food-like substances."

To understand this difference, Pollan sprinkles much of the first half of the book with discussions of the past hundred years of nutrition "science" and why it's really not so scientific. Anyone who pays attention to the constant and conflicting admonitions about the latest nutrients that are both good for you and could possibly kill you will already be convinced of many of Pollan's arguments here. He goes on to elaborate, however, citing the focus on individual nutrients as one major reason why these studies are so flawed. This is one area where reductionist science just seems to fail entirely. In many cases it is nearly impossible to separate the effects of a single nutrient on a person's well being from the rest of their diet and overall lifestyle.

Studies nevertheless attempt to drill down to this level, for two reasons: the prevalence of reductionist thinking in other academic fields and the fact that, politically, it's a lot easier to tell people to eat less or more of an individual nutrient or compound (trans fat, e.g) than it is to recommend that they eat less of a food, since the food has lobbyists on K Street in Washington. Nutrients, with the exception of sucrose, tend not to be so well represented.

Pollan then moves into his recommendations for what an average person can do to eat well without buying land and learning to farm for all of their needs. Many of these recommendations are easy to follow (I managed to resist the deep-fried mozzarella sticks at Burger King, but that wasn't just because Pollan would classify them as "food-like substances"), but some are a bit trickier. It takes some real discipline to devote more of your day to preparing and cleaning up after meals - I can almost guarantee that I won't be enacting this one, or doing much preparing of meals at all, as long as I am on this same project and without someone to cook with for three-four nights a week.

I will, however, be changing some choices when it comes to the meals that I do eat out - even eating out has a whole new feel to it after reading this book. My perspective now is that it's an opportunity to seize: here are people who are willing to prepare lots of delicious options for you, many of which contain loads and loads of fresh fruits and vegetables, all in a portion that is more or less perfectly suited to your needs without having to worry about buying too many veggies and watching them go bad.

The one negative that I identified in Pollan's recommendations was the fact that they seemed to be geared toward people who lived more or less inactive lifestyles. Many of the potential problems from diet go away if you just exercise a few times a week - if you're really concerned about your health but are not willing to take that simple next step - it seems as though you could pour endless hours into researching, purchasing, and preparing foods and are very healthful (Pollan mentions a word to describe this situation - "orthorexia," or an obsession with eating right, a disease still awaiting official confirmation) and only be fighting less than half of the battle.

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Meghan rated it:

03/08/08

Read in March, 2008

In a time when reading is a somewhat escapist activity, when people prefer reading for pleasure than reading for knowledge and when mindless entertainment is the oft-chosen occupation of our leisure; I find myself in the minority in that I enjoy learning something new from what I read. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollen is no exception to that idea; I enjoyed what I learned from reading it.

That is not to say that I didn’t have my qualms about the book at first: wo...more In a time when reading is a somewhat escapist activity, when people prefer reading for pleasure than reading for knowledge and when mindless entertainment is the oft-chosen occupation of our leisure; I find myself in the minority in that I enjoy learning something new from what I read. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollen is no exception to that idea; I enjoyed what I learned from reading it.

That is not to say that I didn’t have my qualms about the book at first: would it be too scientific, too hard to understand; would it be belittling or scolding about my eating habits; would it focus all on the negative, have a lot of bitter discussion but no positive solutions? I found that I was pleasantly incorrect about my qualms and “An Eater’s Manifesto” is none of these.

Pollen’s approach is a little deceptive, but in a subtle and pleasing manner, more sly or coy than deceptive. The introduction reads as a conversation between friends, casual tones peppered with highbrow humor. Mild paranoia ensues in section one, bordering on a conspiracy theory involving the government, food companies, marketers, journalists and scientists. The second section compounds on these ideas while adding a negative undertone reaction to the blatant decline of our country’s health. Then section three comes in like a breath of fresh air, full of promise, hope and steps for improvement.

Had Pollen ended his manifesto after section two, the book would have just been another critical (in all senses of the word) look at our food’s history and current state of affairs. Thankfully, his prose came full circle and the tenor of the last section resembled that of his introduction. Offering advice as though he were speaking to a close friend, Pollen makes the idea of implementing his proffered solutions seem easy, even enjoyable. And the light-heartedness of the tone in this section serves as a welcome juxtaposition to the somewhat stale and arduous reading of the previous two sections (I blame the footnotes; anything with footnotes brings to mind the textbooks of college and will forever be associated with difficult reading).

What I enjoyed most about In Defense of Food – aside from the turns of phrase which actually made me laugh out loud (one in particular referring to the neurons in our digestive tract, “we’re not really sure what they’re up to”) – is that it not only made me think about the content of the book, it made me think about the content of my life. Minus my current dabbling in reading self-improvement books, I have been an avid consumer of fiction and fiction rarely requires me to reflect on my life (though I will glean some new piece of knowledge on most occasions). I was actually quite uncomfortable in this conclusion originally – after all, who wants to realize that they’re mindlessly agreeing with what the media tells them and is simultaneously living (eating) a lifestyle that will more likely than not kill me in a very unpleasant way – but I believe that this is the first step in truly making a change in your lifestyle, for who would bother making a change if you were comfortable?

It was nice to read that someone else agrees with my idea that food should be enjoyed and that it’s worth paying more for better food even if there is less of it. I cannot tell you how many arguments I have had with my fiancé about what he regards as a waste of money and how food is strictly meant to fuel your body in response to my preference for actually enjoying my meal and getting more satisfaction than when I eat simply to “fuel” myself. Maybe I should move to France.

Although Pollan presents his statistics in the one of the most understandable manners I have read, I would have preferred an easier narrative throughout sections one and two of this book. These contain the most vital information, but if other readers are anything like me, they sort of skimmed in some passages because there was no real break in the scientific mumbo-jumbo to give a layperson’s understanding of what was being presented. Don’t get me wrong; Pollan interprets the jargon quite well in his summaries, but they were too far apart from the original context and therefore I had forgotten what he was talking about. Section three was his redemption; although his original message was never lost: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
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Paulette rated it:

03/19/08

Read in March, 2008

Pollan's In Defense of Food makes the call for a return to healthy, pleasurable eating. Pollan notes that American eaters are less likely (than their European counterparts, for example) to take their time in eating food; rather they're apt to eating alone and on the go, and consume processed, "food-like" products as opposed to actual food. Pollan argues that we should go back to eating only what our great grandmothers would recognize as food, taking the time and investing the money i...more Pollan's In Defense of Food makes the call for a return to healthy, pleasurable eating. Pollan notes that American eaters are less likely (than their European counterparts, for example) to take their time in eating food; rather they're apt to eating alone and on the go, and consume processed, "food-like" products as opposed to actual food. Pollan argues that we should go back to eating only what our great grandmothers would recognize as food, taking the time and investing the money in purchasing, cooking, and enjoying said real food (mostly plants, he advises). Pollan provides a sketch of the genesis and growth of the nutrition movement, noting that this "science" (a term that he finds highly debatable) often went hand-in-hand with the political and economic agendas of various interest groups. I found his writing to be engaging and enjoyable, and certainly, his arguments, while nothing revolutionary for the most part, were generally persuasive enough for me to be still thinking about the book days later. I appreciate his pointing out that we've seemed to have lost the culture in eating, the rituals of communing over food, for example. That said, one can point to several shortcomings in his book:

1) Analytic Slippage: Pollan spends much of the book seeking to prove that the science of nutrition is inherently flawed and simplistic, failing to capture the holistic, interactive nature of diet and health outcomes. However, in attempt to support his claims about the inherent weakness of nutritional science (that we should all but ignore, according to him) and the evils of the Western Diet, he relies pretty heavily on evidence from... nutritional science! Even though he argues that we should be focusing on the food item itself (e.g., blueberries) and not the one or two nutrients that we THINK are good for us(e.g., antioxidants), he falls into the similar habit of "reducing" (in his words) the food to its purportedly effective nutrient. Pollan acknowledges the slippage (and logical fallacy, using my own words) in the final part of the book and, I think, is forced to point out the positive aspects of nutritional science, that this is the best methodology we got, blah blah blah; otherwise his arguments would have collapsed by his own initial critiques of "nutritionism."

2) Glaring Omission: Pollan barely (if at all) acknowledges the role of race/ethnicity and socio-economic status and the ability to eat healthy foods. In his final section, in which he offers suggestions to the reader for healthier eating, he states that the socio-economically disadvantaged cannot follow his suggestions, which is a shame, really, but "the rest of us" have no excuse. This book was clearly written by the privileged for the privileged, about which he is unabashedly unapologetic.

3) Another Big Omission: Understandably given the title, Pollan would keep his focus on healthy eating, but the other important x variable in physical health is, of course, physical activity, which barely gets an honorable mention in his work.

4) Pollan argues for a return to culture (which he equates to "Mom") in our eating, and instructs us, among other things, to eat at a table (and no, a desk doesn't count, he responds preemptively), and eat in the company of others. While I couldn't agree more with that sentiment, Pollan does nothing to address what I believe are the far bigger systemic issues that prevent us from being happy foodies in the first place: the instability of the labor market, the declining pay in many sectors of our economy, the culture of work that makes it virtually impossible for people to get more than 2-3 weeks vacation per year, and so on. Americans, in general, are a pretty stressed out, overworked bunch, and so eating, among other pursuits, will consequently suffer.

Despite these and other critiques I have about the book, I still recommend it for its helpful synthesis of the main arguments we've heard about healthier eating and for its claim to not ignore the social and cultural aspects of eating, which are just as important as the health benefits we're trying to learn (and reap). ...less

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M rated it:

03/18/08

bookshelves: food

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: foodies

This was a harder read for me than The Omnivore's Dilemma. It is full of useful and interesting info, but it wasn't written in the same style of writing. It isn't about his journey meeting or visiting people to learn about this stuff, it's just a ton of facts, studies, and more packed in efficiently. I had a much harder time reading it as a result.

At the same time, I do recommend it as interesting food for thought on the way we think about food, what we are told about food, what food really...more This was a harder read for me than The Omnivore's Dilemma. It is full of useful and interesting info, but it wasn't written in the same style of writing. It isn't about his journey meeting or visiting people to learn about this stuff, it's just a ton of facts, studies, and more packed in efficiently. I had a much harder time reading it as a result.

At the same time, I do recommend it as interesting food for thought on the way we think about food, what we are told about food, what food really is, and who decides what is best for us to eat.

The first part of the book explains the history of the science of nutritionism and where the food pyramid originated. This is an interesting history discussion, reminding me somewhat of The Gospel of Food by Barry Glassner in style (Which he cites as a source.) Part two of the book was the hardest for me, as it was the most technical, but it is interesting as he discusses the problems with nutritionism reductionist science and uses several examples including omega 3's, the lipid hypothesis, the idea of orthorexia, and more. Part three is where the most interesting stuff is though and I found myself really wanting to skip ahead to it and thought it way to short when I did get there. It discusses in detail his 7 word, 3 phrase basic guideline: Eat Food, Not too much, Mostly Plants.

He does fall into the reductionist nutritionism trap that he refutes quite often. He recognizes this at one point, but not all the time. For example, he decides to accept the study saying a glass of wine a day is good for you, and it must be the alcohol in the wine that has the effect. Could it be the fermentation? Or something else? Maybe that's just a matter of personal indulgence, but it is one of the things that bugged me.

He also praises the farmer's market (which are great), without pointing out that many of them are full of people selling stuff right from the supermarket and you have to be careful to know if they are really a farm, or a seller for farmers, or just someone selling food at the market. Or that most CSA's have a very long waiting list. And what about the pick your own farms? Those aren't mentioned. Perhaps he's trying to get more people to go to the farmer's market but I suspect that most people interested in reading such a book have been to a farmer's market and may not know if they've been taken.

His guidelines are good ideas overall. Of course, for the don't buy anything your great grandma wouldn't recognize as food, I have to go farther back than my great grandparents b/c they were big into vitamins and supplements and only died 10 years ago.

I am left wondering if I should increase our food budget, (as American's spend only 10% on average on food, as compared to French & Italian at 15% and Spanish at 17%. I am also feeling inspired to be more diligent about going to farmers markets and pick your own farms. I have been thinking about many of his guidelines for the past couple days, wondering how he would apply them to this or that situation and then deciding it's up to me, not the author to decide how to implement things in my life.

I did learn more about the slow food movement. He is a bit of a stickler on some of the food manners. Eat only at the table, and snacking is not kosher. Ummm...do you remember what it's like to have small kids with very small stomachs? Nevertheless, I have decided to make a concerted effort to plan and serve breakfast, lunch & dinner at regular times in our house as much as possible, at the table and not allow myself to do other things while eating, but to focus on eating and enjoying my family. After a day and a half, it's been very positive. How will it go in the future? I don't know. But I'm trying to listen more to my internal food cues and let my kids listen to theirs.

Why do you eat? Merely to provide yourself with nutrition for other activities? I hope not. Food is more than that. ...less

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Happyreader rated it:

03/06/08

bookshelves: food-and-drink, health-and-diet

Read in March, 2008

I hated reading this book. And that's sad because I agree with his basic premise. Just eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And I would add, try and get off your ass once in awhile. But this book was excrutiating to read. I read the first 50 pages, gave up, and went to the last section on his very basic food rules, gave up again. His language was all black and white with blanket condemnations and blanket recommendations, ironic since that's what he condemns in scientific thinking and...more I hated reading this book. And that's sad because I agree with his basic premise. Just eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And I would add, try and get off your ass once in awhile. But this book was excrutiating to read. I read the first 50 pages, gave up, and went to the last section on his very basic food rules, gave up again. His language was all black and white with blanket condemnations and blanket recommendations, ironic since that's what he condemns in scientific thinking and food marketing. Oddly, he comes off as so much more even-handed in his interviews.

That said, his message is important but what's really going on is more nuanced than presented. As a dietitian, I agree that people should be able to figure out what to eat on their own. I really should only have to meet with people with special medical conditions and dietary needs. Instead, many of my patients haven't a clue and they rely on supplements, protein powders, and various bars to meet their needs. It's crazy. A balanced and varied diet of mostly veggies, fruits, whole grains, and lean proteins will meet your nutritional needs.

I also agree with him about the nature of nutrition research. The food frequency questionnaire is a crazy tool. And don't even get me started on diet recalls. Patients lie. I used to think they lied to me but soon realized they're actually lying to themselves. They really don't register and/or are unwilling to own up to what they're eating. But that's another topic. Any research involving human beings is tough. Test tubes are easier to control.

I think that's what really bothered me about this book. It came across as a good-people-vs-bad-people polemic. Like all systems, however, there is usually some good and bad on all sides. Food marketers sell what people buy. If we wouldn't buy it, they wouldn't sell it. On the positive side, that's why there is more organic food available these days. There's a market for it and where there's a market, there's a marketer. That's not to say there aren't some sleazy marketing practices that pervert what the market wants. Just look at what's happening with organic food guidelines.

As consumers, we bear some responsibility. Food and diet have definately become fetishized. We project so much onto our eating habits, including comfort, status, shame, and ego gratification. Plus many people are looking for the quick, easy, and mindless route to healthy living so "special diets," "power foods," and "quickie solutions" sell. I sometimes joke with my dietitian friends that we could make some real money with a crazy diet book that only allows red foods to be eaten on Monday and orange foods on Tuesday.

Crazy gimmicks sell. They relieve us of the burden of decision making. When I first saw the Special K diet commercials, I thought there was no way that anyone who eat mostly Special K all day. I was shocked when I met patients actually on that diet. They liked it because they didn't have to think about what foods to eat. Gimmicks also create the illusion that you're buying some secret that will keep you thin and healthy forever. Eat less, exercise more just doesn't seem cutting edge enough for some people.

If what you're looking is more info on how crazy our food system is, try Marion Nestle's "Food Politics." If what you're looking for is more practical advice on a normal, balanced diet, try "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy" or "Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less." And if you want to follow Michael Pollan's sage advice to cook more, start somewhere easy like "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian." Like Mollie Katzen very wisely said, regardless of your eating philosophy, we need to eat more veggies. Eat more plants....less

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Rebecca rated it:

06/17/08

Read in June, 2008

Michael Pollan's newest book, In Defense of Food, is highly readable and informative. He talks about "nutritionism," a sort of religious belief in the benefits of eating food for nutritional benefits rather than for pleasure or cultural reasons. He asserts that this belief is what has led Americans astray in their eating because we regard non-food items as being healthier than food. What this means is that we think non-fat yogurt, made using about 50 different ingredients, including Po...more Michael Pollan's newest book, In Defense of Food, is highly readable and informative. He talks about "nutritionism," a sort of religious belief in the benefits of eating food for nutritional benefits rather than for pleasure or cultural reasons. He asserts that this belief is what has led Americans astray in their eating because we regard non-food items as being healthier than food. What this means is that we think non-fat yogurt, made using about 50 different ingredients, including Pollan's nemesis, High Fructose Corn Syrup, is better for us than plain old yogurt made using milk. We eat items because they scream at us that they are healthy: "Low Cholesterol!" "Low fat!" "No Trans Fat!" "Contains Omega 3's!" while in reality these foods aren't even food. They're food-like substances.

In the book Pollan points out the pitfalls of eating this way, most notably that nutritionists aren't sure what really is good for us and what is not. They choose, seemingly haphazardly, a nutrtional element to play either devil or angel and we just jump on board. Pollan suggests instead that we ignore all this hullabaloo and go back to traditional food cultures (choose any: French, Japanese, Greek, Spanish, it doesn't matter) where food is eaten for enjoyment, not just fuel. If you buy fresh produce and make your own food at home there can be no mistaking a food substitute for real food.

Earlier in the year I read Pollan's previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. While The Omnivore's Dilemma was incredibly interesting and a very in-depth look at how our food is produced and how far from traditional food cultures we have come, I felt that In Defense of Food was more readable. The Omnivore's Dilemma took me about three weeks to get through (and really, it could have been three books in their own right) and made me seriously want to change my eating habits. The only problem was there wasn't a "how-to" guide in the end. I knew I should cut out processed foods, but how far does that rule go?

Well, the solution was given in In Defense of Food, which, by the way, only took me two days to read. In the last section Pollan gives a common sense approach to helping his readers figure out what is food and how it should be eaten. Really, the information provided was so apparent, I couldn't believe it has taken me so long to figure it out, or that I needed someone to tell me how to do it. But that, Pollan would say, is the problem with our current food situation in America.

A couple of the many solutions Pollan has to choosing what to eat and how to eat it:

"Avoid food products containing inredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high fructose corn syrup."

"Do all your eating at a table. No, your desk is not a table."

He also goes into detail about many of these points and explains why they work and gives several examples of foods that should be looked at more carefully (bread is one of them). I know many people are sick of hearing about the food problem in America and about the latest diet trend, but I think Pollan takes a different tack and has something really, really important to say. As I was reading this my boyfriend looked over and said, "Not another book about food!" I know, I know.

But really, I think it's an important issue in our culture. I've lived in France twice and both times I lost considerable amounts of weight (the first time, I lost 45 pounds in only 8 months without even trying. I can't even lose A pound here). There is something fishy going on in our food system and I think it's important for us to take notice and take "subversive measures" (aka buying fresh produce from real farmers instead of big stores and stop eating processed foods) to reverse the current system. Reading books like Pollan's will help us to do that....less

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Jenell rated it:

07/19/08

bookshelves: health, history, home

Read in July, 2008

Having first read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and then The Botany of Desire, I was in awe. To produce all that research, to go out in the field for interviews and first-hand experience, and then to orchestrate it all in such objective and eloquent prose—that was superhuman! And I became a humble worshipper.

Pollan’s newest work In Defense of Food is another such brilliant creation. He first talks about nutritionism, which is the reduction of foods into their constituent...more

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Elizabeth rated it:

01/20/08

Read in January, 2008

I just finished a great book: In Defense of Food; An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. You might have heard about his other big book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you are the kind of person who wants to live with intentionality and conscience, but aren't ready to move into the woods and grow and hunt all your own food, this book is for you. And Pollan is willing to give away the whole thing on the cover: eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

"Eat food" sounds simple and it should ...more I just finished a great book: In Defense of Food; An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. You might have heard about his other big book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you are the kind of person who wants to live with intentionality and conscience, but aren't ready to move into the woods and grow and hunt all your own food, this book is for you. And Pollan is willing to give away the whole thing on the cover: eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

"Eat food" sounds simple and it should be. But, simple isn't always easy. There's a line in Mere Christianity by CS Lewis that goes like this, "All sensible people know that if you are tired and hungry a meal will do you good. But the modern theory of nourishment--all about vitamins and proteins--is a different thing. People ate their dinners and felt better long before the theory of vitamins was ever heard of..." These theories about vitamins and proteins are all part of what others and Pollan call "nutritionism"--breaking food down into elements which go into it and leaving out the big picture. That big picture is what we actually enjoy eating and what eludes scientific enquiry in many cases. As Pollan points out, worrying about what you're eating all the time is an eating problem, too (one called "orthorexia"). He wants us to eat real food-- something your great-grandmother would recognize, without health claims, as unprocessed as possible. And he wants us to eat it properly. We should have meals, sitting down and not running around. And when we decide what foods to eat, we shouldn't ask the government or research studies funded by agricultural industry, but our own selves and history. Food is part of culture. Food-like substances are unnecessary and not helping anything. Taking vitamins and nutrients and labels out of context has gotten America only further away from health.

Basically, we need a broader view of food. This book takes a broader view, too. Pollan covers where nutritional info has come from, the role of the government in health claims, nutritional inflation, and why the French eat food considered "worse" but are healthier and happier. This is more thoughtful and thought-provoking than "Supersize Me," looking beyond hating on certain foods (that's one of the flaws of nutritionism) and looking critically at the overall diet in question. Overall, choose food culture over food science. The book is well-written, interesting, and even has something in there for your Romantic and Jeffersonian instincts. As soon as you pick it up, you'll realize you needed to read this. Pollan writes: "You would not have bought this book and read this far into it if your food culture was intact and healthy. And while it is true that most of us unthinkingly place the authority of science above culture in all matters having to do with our health, that prejudice should at least be examined. The question we need to ask is, Are we better off with these new authorities telling us how to eat than we were with the traditional authorities they supplanted? The issue by now should be clear."...less

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Spencer rated it:

02/07/08

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: everyone

Thanks for the reminder to update, Ethan!

This book was really eye opening. I think (or thought) of myself as having a pretty healthy diet-- I have the whole wheat blend flaxseed enhanced pasta, the total cereal with nonfat soy milk, the bran muffins and the fish oil capsules.

I AM A DUPE! I've been sucked into the cult of "nutritionism" as Pollans calls it, the belief that what's healthy about the food are the identified micronutrients it contains, and that foods are either heal...more Thanks for the reminder to update, Ethan!

This book was really eye opening. I think (or thought) of myself as having a pretty healthy diet-- I have the whole wheat blend flaxseed enhanced pasta, the total cereal with nonfat soy milk, the bran muffins and the fish oil capsules.

I AM A DUPE! I've been sucked into the cult of "nutritionism" as Pollans calls it, the belief that what's healthy about the food are the identified micronutrients it contains, and that foods are either healthful elixers or near poisons, depending on whether or not they contain the nutritional demon of the moment (once this was saturated fat, now it's trans fats). I was a believer in progress-- I regularly two-fist diet coke and tasti-d-lite, drink the vitamin water and snack on the bars-- the luna, the balance, the zone. Yes, I notice that the more we Americans seem to discover about the inner workings of food, the fatter and sicker we seem to become, but I figured that was just because we don't know how to control ourselves and we, as a culture, drive everywhere.

Pollans' theory is so simple, so obvious, it makes me kind of angry I didn't notice it before. Scientists obviously don't know a lot about the inner workings of food-- nutrition is a new science, and we've witnessed such faddish changes in its fundamental precepts (margarine is better for you! antioxidants will prevent cancer! carbs are the cornerstone of a healthy diet! carbs are SATAN!) we should already be skeptical of its claims. We know so little about how food really works in the body that it's preposterous to think that we could reengineer it better than nature could. Even the produce we grow-- so carefully engineered to produce high yields and easily transportable produce, has fewer nutrients than the same food did in the 1940s. The modern, largely refined and processed, "western diet" is lethal, fattening, and leads to chronic diseases unknown in societies that eat much simpler, traditional foodstuffs. If we're so good at food science, how come we're so much worse off?

So he advises us to eat food (as in, something our great grandmothers would recognize as such-- not, in his example, a "go-gurt" squeezable yogurt tube), not too much, and mostly plants. This is enormously freeing. Until you try to avoid eating processed foods, in which case it also becomes enormously challenging. And time consuming, and expensive.

But if you can do it, it's worth it. He doesn't promise a panacea, and his recommendations don't make any health claims. That's the point. There is a mystery to the foods themselves-- how they have evolved to satisfy and sustain us-- and an art to bringing that food forth from the earth. This book is a reminder of what nutritionism taught us to forget.

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Firecooked rated it:

02/18/08

bookshelves: foodie-books

Read in February, 2008

Its always easier to like and recommend a book when it summarizes what you already believe. I had a good friend comment (while we were chowing down at a party) “you’re so thin, you can eat anything”. I didn’t say anything, but I’m thin because I DON”T just eat anything; I work to eat things that taste good and are good for you (and if not, don’t eat it!). I quit using margarine probably 25 years ago (I had a good job and could afford “real” butter), I stopped drinking (and...more Its always easier to like and recommend a book when it summarizes what you already believe. I had a good friend comment (while we were chowing down at a party) “you’re so thin, you can eat anything”. I didn’t say anything, but I’m thin because I DON”T just eat anything; I work to eat things that taste good and are good for you (and if not, don’t eat it!). I quit using margarine probably 25 years ago (I had a good job and could afford “real” butter), I stopped drinking (and never started eating) stuff with artificial sweeteners 10 years ago, discovered farmers markets 15 years ago in California, and over the last few years, have eliminated High Fructose Corn Syrup and trans-fats from my diet (so I use all butter in my piecrust instead of shortening). I consider myself lucky in that I like vegetables (always have), I like to cook, don't have a big sweet tooth, and grew up eating meals consisting of real food, with a minimum of junk food (thanks Mom). So, I recommend reading this book, but realize its going to be harder for others to swallow than it was for me.

In Defense of Food builds on Michael Pollan’s first book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. This book goes to the next step, successfully explaining how things have become so confused, and why people on the typical American diet have so many overwhelming health issues that are directly attributed to what they eat. He cuts through the blather of what we hear (low-fat, high-fiber, no-cholesterol!) with a simple fact: the information on nutrition is simply missing a lot of data. Most of the studies are fundamentally flawed (such as relying on what individuals remember what they ate, or believing that they can isolate one food element without regard to other elements, some of which they don’t even know exist). On top of that, marketing organizations ("pork...the other white meat") further distort the data and influence governments and other large organizations to serve their bottom line, not our waist line. The solid data available is pretty limited: trans-fats are bad, large amounts of highly refined carbohydrates are bad, vegetables are good. The best studies have shown that returning to diets that were typical of 100 years or more ago (before we started “refining” food) substantially improved health. And that results in the