In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto in GoodReviews: The Official Book Review Contest

Mar 04, 2008

Amy rated it:

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.
...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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Feb 18, 2008

Andy rated it:

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

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

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

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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Nov 09, 2007

Edan rated it:

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: People who eat

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
So begins In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Michael Pollan's informative, frightening, and ultimately inspiring new book. Pollan explores the dangers of nutritionism and traces how we became a culture of fat people eating "Heart Healthy!" Fritos in our cars--and/or a culture of eaters obsessed with health, and yet eating food-like substances that are in fact incredibly harmful to our bodies. He urges us to to ignore the no...more

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Mar 06, 2008

Meghan rated it:

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 f...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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Mar 02, 2008

Amy rated it:

Read in March, 2008

I accidentally read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Easter's Manifesto this morning. I say "accidentally" because I really didn't set out to spend the morning this way, but Pollan's manifesto--and it is accurately labeled as such--is such a lucid, readable treatise on the ills of contemporary food culture in the United States that is gripping precisely because it is so timely and relevant. Perhaps the most convincing aspect of Pollan's approach is that rather than focusing o...more I accidentally read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Easter's Manifesto this morning. I say "accidentally" because I really didn't set out to spend the morning this way, but Pollan's manifesto--and it is accurately labeled as such--is such a lucid, readable treatise on the ills of contemporary food culture in the United States that is gripping precisely because it is so timely and relevant. Perhaps the most convincing aspect of Pollan's approach is that rather than focusing on the "magic bullet" solutions forwarded by the American food industry (bran! wine! chocolate! olive oil! fish!) of which his book is so scathing, Pollan advocates an intuitive approach to food that really does, in its simplest form, amount to the words on the cover: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Pollan's manifesto is divided into sections that not only clarify the U.S.'s historically corrupt and scatter-shot scientific approaches to marketing the industrialization of American food, but also the history and systemic nature of what he calls "nutritionism"--a term that helps to describe a variety of perverse American eating practices (and politics), including the religious attention we give to labels and ingredient lists rather than our own senses and traditional food practices.

As a manifesto, Pollan's advocacy of a return to eating "real food"--that is, foods your great-grandmother would recognize as such--does have a prescriptive, salvatory tone. But I would argue that contemporary American ignorance of that "real food" justifies his approach (as does our love for conversion experience, but that's another issue--perhaps). Pollan offers Go-gurt as an example of a food she might not recognize, but as I had just finished a snack of Wheat-thins, I immediately realized that many of the "healthier" choices we consume as a palliative to our consciences qualifies as non-food.

The fact that we do offer our minds--not our bellies, tongues, or eyes--such palliatives indicates to my mind just how much we are in need of a book that offers us something other than a magic bullet formula. We do, it seems, need to relearn not just what to eat but how to think about food--its history, its values, and the individual, community, local, and global implications of our relationship to the age-old center of human existence means that we do, indeed, require a manifesto to provide a cultural adjustment and help us relearn our forebears' art of finding, preparing, and eating food.(less)

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Feb 23, 2008

Pam rated it:

Read in March, 2008

I loved Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and was excited to hear he had written another book about our food choices. This time, he focuses on how and what to eat. However, this book isn't like all the other books out there that tell you what to eat. For example, he says that food decisions are easy if you follow these rules: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

It sounds simple, but, as Pollan explains in the first two parts of the book, our intelligence about what "food"...more

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Jan 23, 2008

Jen rated it:

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: everyone

I love Michael Pollan's writing... it's smooth and full, and pulls you into the most mundane topics with ease. If you love food, start with The Omnivore's Dilemma and read this one second. Together they present a sweeping picture of American food systems, the problems we're facing (a lack of nutrition, an over-abundance of cheap calories, diet-related diseases, ecological degradation), and how to solve them (in delicious ways).

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Nov 02, 2008

Gary rated it:

recommends it for: anyone willing to reconsider what they eat

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 28, 2008

Lisa rated it:

Read in January, 2008

A cogent look at the current Western diet, and why it's so bad for Americans. The author also explores what he calls "nutritionism," which involves getting hooked into the latest fad, whether it be low fat or low carb, or omega-3 fatty acids. Very literate, highly recommended.

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Apr 16, 2008

ducky added it

Read in March, 2008

Provides advice that should have been obvious to me but never was. I thought I got the gist of it from the tag line "Eat Food. Not Much. Mostly Plants." but there was so much more to discover.

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Jan 11, 2008

Steven rated it:

bookshelves: criticism, food-nutrition, journalism, science

Read in October, 2008

Short, simple argument on how to navigate the entangled business of food and nutrition.

Pollan sums it up like this: Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

Doesn't get easier than that.

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