In Defense of Food
Category: Health & Nutrition
Author: Michael Pollan
Copyright/published Year: 2008 by Penguin Press
ISBN: 9781594201455
Binding: Cloth
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.
About the Author
Michael Pollan is the author of four previous books, including
The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire,
both New York Times bestsellers. A longtime contributor to
The New York Times, he is also the Knight Professor of journalism
at Berkeley.
Condition Information
This book is new.
