Product 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #608 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.54" h x 1.01" w x 5.82" l, .83 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In his hugely influential treatise The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan traced a direct line between the industrialization of our food supply and the degradation of the environment. His new book takes up where the previous work left off. Examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of health, this powerfully argued, thoroughly researched and elegant manifesto cuts straight to the chase with a maxim that is deceptively simple: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. But as Pollan explains, food in a country that is driven by a thirty-two billion-dollar marketing machine is both a loaded term and, in its purest sense, a holy grail. The first section of his three-part essay refutes the authority of the diet bullies, pointing up the confluence of interests among manufacturers of processed foods, marketers and nutritional scientists—a cabal whose nutritional advice has given rise to a notably unhealthy preoccupation with nutrition and diet and the idea of eating healthily. The second portion vivisects the Western diet, questioning, among other sacred cows, the idea that dietary fat leads to chronic illness. A writer of great subtlety, Pollan doesn't preach to the choir; in fact, rarely does he preach at all, preferring to lets the facts speak for themselves. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Scott Brick brings the necessary energy, pacing, and articulation to what promises to be one of this yearÕs most popular and provocative titles. His delivery of PollanÕs critique of what we eat is delivered with a heavier irony than readers might find on the page and misses some of this fine stylistÕs quieter tones. However, of all PollanÕs work, this particular title requires the most force and assurance, and the pacing of a skilled reader. PollanÕs denunciation of Òthe ideology of nutritionism,Ó packed with studies, names, theories, and suppositions, is food for two or three listenings. Brick carries this manifesto against nutrition science and food manufacturers with the voice of indictment--unflinching, unflagging, and fired by conviction. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
'If you're prone to pondering the nutritional advice we're spoon-fed by 'experts', this book is a very necessary antidote' Timeout 'In Defence of Food ... instantly makes redundant all diet books and 99 per cent of discussions around healthy eating' Daily Mail 'Read this witty book for a healthier life and diet' Times 'Eminently sensible' Evening Standard 'His approach is steeped in honesty and self-awareness. His cause is just, his thinking is clear, and his writing is compelling' Washington Post