In Defense of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating

Overview

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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Author Information

Bio of Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and the author, most recently, of The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, a New York Times best seller. His writing has received numerous awards, including the John Burroughs prize (for the best natural history essay in 1997), the QPB New Vision Award (for his first book, Second Nature), the 2000 Reuters-I.U.C.N. Global Award for Environmental Journalism for his reporting on genetic engineering and the 2003 American Humane Society's Genesis Award for his writing on animal agriculture. The Botany of Desire received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best non-fiction work of 2001, and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon. Beginning in 2003 he will be the Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley. Pollan's previous books are A Place of My Own (1997) and The Botany of Desire (2001). His work is included in many anthologies, including Best American Essays and The Norton Book of Nature Writing. In addition to publishing regularly in the New York Times Magazine, his articles have appeared in Harper's, Vogue, Gourmet, Travel & Leisure, Garden Design, Gardens Illustrated, and House & Garden. Pollan is also a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, where he served for many years as Executive Editor. Pollan grew up on Long Island, and was educated at Bennington College, Oxford University, and Columbia University.

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Additional Info

Imprint

The Penguin Press HC

Filesize

829.82 KB

Number of Pages

256

eBook ISBN

9781429581257