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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto |  | Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: internationalbooks
Rating:  353 reviews
Sales Rank: 65
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0143114964
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9780143114963
ASIN: 0143114964
Publication Date: April 28, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
Product Description
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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 353
 If you care about what you eat and how you feel... March 7, 2010
An Educated Consumer (Floral Park, NY)
Books, manuals, health guides, nutrition, DIET!!!!....what to eat!!!
Putting all of the above mentioned aside, this is a timely, essential guide to electing proper choices in our health and well being, not to mention our planet.
There is so much misinformation, trend diognostics, nutritional mumbo jumbo, warnings, supplementation, additives, chemicals etc.
It can really be so much more simple...
EAT FOOD, NOT TOO MUCH, MOSTLY PLANTS!
Value your eating time and selections, search it out, prepare and savor, appreciate and you will be healthier, happier and wizer.
This book will spur you on!
Refreshing Point of View March 7, 2010
J. Carter (U.K.)
Most refreshing way of looking at the whole food, nutrition and diet point of view. Perfect for anyone wanting to eat for longevity and health, but confused by the plethora of diets out there. The journalistic approach allows a review of history, politics and facts regarding foods with most interesting conclusions.
 Intelligent, Radical, Timely March 7, 2010
Azim Amarshi (Lausanne, Switzerland)
Unlike M. Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, this work is a real eye-opener, highly interesting, and likely to stimulate much overdue discussion, and wide-ranging changes. The mantra, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." is simple, intelligent, and ...... surprising, coming as it does from one who I had imagined to be a great lover/gorger of non-vegetarian fare.
Half way through the book I looked for Ayurveda and Macrobiotics in the index. The author had found no use for these systems, both of which have been prescribing pretty much the same rules of thumb about eating, and which have been quietly making inroads into western lifestyles since a number of decades. The difference is that for these philosophies alcohol would not be considered food. Intoxicant, yes, medicine, perhaps, but food? Indeed it's possible to argue that one thing that's very wrong with the western diet is alcohol, which is considered to be a drink. Scientists study what they can measure, and journalists see, and write about, what they want to see. Pollan chooses to see the "fact" that a glass or two of alcohol a day is good for health.
Pollan writes a good deal on the question of why we eat. One would have thought that it's pretty simple: we eat when the body is hungry; we drink when we feel thirst. Unlike us thinking types, when one watches an animal feeding, or a human baby on the breast, or an enlightened being eating or drinking, what we witness is communion. At the end of the book Pollan touches on this word. Perhaps this concept shall be the subject of a future work of his....
While reviewing The Omnivore's Dilemma I had predicted that M.Pollan was quite likely to go vegetarian sometime quite soon. This seems to be happening, although he has yet to be convinced that he needs to for reasons of health. Having been a lover of non-vegetarian food as well as alcohol previously, and a teetotaler vegetarian now, my own experience of enjoying much better well-being in this new way of life leads me to give this work a 4 rather than 5-star rating.
 Not Real Science. Almost Crackpot Science, Be Careful... March 4, 2010
Inga-Haban (Berkeley, CA)
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
Whew, did I write that title? I read this book several times, and I have watched several of his interviews, and yes, he is knowledgeable and charming. In fact, I wanted him to be right and to be widely read. But, after many hard hours -- I have to say, no. He's on the Berkeley campus but he has pseudo-intellectual roots from Stanford, which is the worst elitist school in human history. Pollan in reality is just a very, very silly guy. He's a journalist by choice, which means he's not a real scientist, he does not understand real science, or the history of science. But his great sin is that he does not understand social history or class history or cultural history -- and the struggles and battles fought therein. What Pollan really is frightens me. He's a 19th century thinker. Which means his major fault is to be over-ingenious. He draws conclusions too hastily. He over intellectualizes because he thinks he's being cute or lovable. Yes, he salt and peppers his books with fascinating facts that we all need to know, but his books are not the best source for these necessary food facts, especially when those facts are accompanied by gross misunderstandings about human history, evolution and physiology. He makes grand statements but gets there on tenuous foundations. Example, he says corn has no consciousness then rants about its evolutionary intentions to take over. He's winking at us, but he doesn't understand that evolution means that everything corn does is arbitrary by definition. He doesn't get this, instead he uses all the co-incidents of attributes of plants to suggest a pattern of survival skills that show an intelligence by implication, and thereby there is in evidence this under thread or subtext throughout all his books that plants have an intelligent design -- which, in fact, is the very opposite of evolution. But, so what, why let this bother you, or me? Well, that's not all. In the first several chapters of this book or even in the first 15 minutes of his interviews -- you can count 3,4 or even 5 gaffs. Let's see, he says: (1) nutritionists don't really know anything; then (2) doctors don't understand the digestive system; (3) western diet causes all the diseases of later years; (4) corn syrup is killing us... etc., etc., etc. When in fact, these are all very complex and compound ideas and groups of ideas that Pollan lumps into these over broad assumptions and conclusions. The truth is this: Pollan is the one who doesn't understand. He's unstudied and a middle brow at best. He's popular now because people are worried, he's hit a nerve and will get rich, yes, over-ingenious and rich. Gee, I wish I had thought about that. Hmm... NO, It's really spoliation. Spoliation of difficult taxing subject matter which hasn't been given its rightful due. These topics are multilayered and require years of research to tackle just one of Pollan's many broad assumptions. I wish I had the time and space to tick off all of his mistakes. But here's just one example. Western diet and the spread of classic diseases attributed thereto is only corollary driven. There's no necessary foundational or cause and effect connection between the two. Heart disease and cancer are more prevalent as people age and our population has a much older center than the comparatives Pollan holds us up to. Family/tribal support and its dissipation have as much to do with these "western diet" diseases as does diet. Which came first the inability to digest well because of the loss of a nurturing supportive environment or the low quality of the thing being digested?
Moreover, many of the basic foods being discounted were the staples of human migration. Pollan does not count in lifestyle or lack thereof enough, which by itself can account for the set of western diseases associated with the western diet. Well, then again, there is something to eating cheap processed food, but that goes without saying. Pollan just muddies the waters with his endless 19th century over-philosophizing, without adequate basis in well established facts.
The best advice is, therefore, to find a better resource book for this vital topic, as the hubris of over achievement ruins this one.
Required Reading February 23, 2010
Milarepa (CA USA)
When I first noticed the title of this book I couldn't understand why food would be defended but after reading the book I not only understood the title but I discovered why such a defense is vitally important.
You might think of the premise of this book to be a sort of paradigm shift back to the way food should be viewed, not as we've come to misunderstand it. I won't get into the details because I think you should read the book to discover this shift for yourself.
If you have any interest in health, diet, dietary health, or food in general I think you need to read this book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 353
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