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.
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