Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9781594201455
ISBN: 1594201455
Label: Penguin Press HC, The
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2008
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Sales Rank: 1846
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The

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Editorial Review:

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.

Amazon.com Review:
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






Rating: - everybodu has to read it
We have so much junk ''food'' in our store, this book will remind you what food really is for us!

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Rating: - Great read that sticks in your mind
This book enhanced the way I approach food. It emphasizes healthful eating with a vivid and logical argument of why this is important. The author's approach and reasoning makes a big impression: I read this book 8 months ago and still find myself gravitating more towards foods that are natural and portions that are modest. It has even influenced my shopping habits - I make a more concerted effort to shop the periphery of the grocery, buying the "raw materials" for meals that I make myself rather ... Read More

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Rating: - It's a bit dense, but worth the careful read....
Sinclair's "The Jungle" took an eye opening, in depth look at the meat industry in this country and led to sweeping changes in the way we produce and the process meat.

Here, we have an eye opening, in depth look at "Nutritionism" - that notion that processed foods are just as good as natural foods so long as the nutritional values are equal - and it's destructve effect on the American diet.

You get history here - some of it tedious (for example there are dates, and policy ... Read More

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Rating: - Love it
This was a great book. I am telling all my friends about it. It came in a timely manner with great service!

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Rating: - Thoughtful, Thought-provoking ...
I have been waiting for quite some time to read this book and I have another one of his books coming on the way. As a woman who has been looking for ways to change our family's eating habits, this book supports my position that we need to eat more plants and less processed food. A lot of the stuff Pollan mentioned in here is nothing new for me as I've read bits and pieces of it elsewhere in other articles and other books, as well as coming to my own conclusion from watching my extended family's eating ... Read More

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