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.