In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto By Michael Pollan

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In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

"Michael Pollan continues his crusade against what he calls industrial food: Food that is grown, processed, and/or actually manufactured from chemicals under factory-like conditions, food that looks alluring in the supermarket (often found in the middle aisles plastered with health claims) but is in reality poor in nutrients and flavor or chock-full of harmful things. In other words, pretty much the entire modern American diet. Seemingly the more our scientists know about nutrition, the fatter and sicker the populace becomes. Pollan makes a convincing argument that perhaps all those nutritional experts know a lot less than they’re willing to let on about how food sustains us. To begin with, a lot of the received wisdom about nutrition is either largely unproven or simply wrong. For example, there has been no evidence of any link between our total cholesterol score and heart disease. LDL, referred to as “bad cholesterol” (even though it’s not actually cholesterol but rather a fatty carrier of cholesterol) has only a slight correlation to heart disease. Furthermore, Pollan tells us, it has been shown that isolated (aboriginal) populations have largely avoided the prevalent chronic diseases of modern life (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, tooth decay) despite the amazing variation in their diets: high fat and protein with no vegetables to speak of (Eskimo), low fat with lots of fruits and vegetables (Mediterranean), diets with and without whole grains (as long as no processed grains are included), and on and on. So which diet is really healthy for us? According to Pollan’s research, almost any diet that is not “Western” (i.e., not full of refined sugars, highly processed grains, and an overabundance of calories) would improve our health outlook. Even more important, populations that treat food as a part of a broader tradition and culture, something to be celebrated and savored, tend to live longer with far fewer chronic illnesses. After all, Pollan insists, our mothers and their mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ must have learned something about nutrition through many generations of trial and error.

This book is somewhat shorter on pure entertainment than Pollan’s previous work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and it does recap some of the facts, findings and opinions in that marvelous earlier work. Yet if you really want to understand how large corporations, elephantine marketing budgets, and the so-called science of nutrition have steered us way wrong and confused us; if you’ve sometimes wondered why America today is the only place and time in history when the population needed experts and journalists (!) to tell us what we can and can’t eat; if you occasionally ask yourself whether all those heart-healthy, reduced fat, low cholesterol, salt-free, American Heart Association certified processed foods on your grocer’s shelves really deliver on their promise; if you scratch your head over living in a country where the poorest citizens are the fattest; if, ultimately, you’re looking to cut through the blather of diet books and scientists to figure out how to approach food shopping and eating with even the slightest degree of sanity—then please read this book with an open mind."

Further Reading:

Click on Michael Pollan's website, In Defense of Food