The companion volume to The New York Times bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan's lastbook , The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.
Amazon Significant Seven, January 2008: Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action--"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow. --Anne Bartholomew
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Read This. Every Last Word. Preferably Now.:
Undoubtedly, this book will be hailed as one of the most influential books of our time. In just 200 pages, Pollan demystifies the 30+ years of confusion, contractions, and chaos created by the food industry and nutritional science. The cover of the book introduces his holy trinity of healthful eating: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. And the rest of the book anchors the roots of this simply ingenious (and indigenous to many traditional cultures, it turns out) approach to eating. In essence, Pollan... more info
To be a fool or not to be a fool, that is the dilemma.:
This book to me is saying, just because somethings are considered everyday normal, cool, acceptable, fine, that's good, and so on that we are all stuck in this whirlpool of status quo. Look this book might not be perfect, but it's good, it's concise and logical. I've read other books related to the subject and they are all saying about the same thing ,which is, we are dealing with short term goals while ignoring the long term goals therefore you can pay me now or you can pay me later.
A florid history of food "nutritionism" with dietary recommendations:
Having enjoyed Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, I looked forward to reading In Defense of Food, but was ultimately disappointed. The bulk of the book is a florid history of nutritional science's focus on isolated nutrients--nutritionalism--and how the food manufacturing industry takes advantage of scientific findings in both the development and marketing of their products. But the writing style that worked so well in the Omnivore's Dilemma was far too clever in this book for... more info
Doesn't bring much to the table:
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.
