In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
I haven’t read Pollan’s previous book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but having seen him interviewed, it struck me that he felt the need to apologize for not being vegan and justify his choice. I’m a proud and happy omnivore myself, so I began reading this book with a bias toward the content but against the author. That’s how I finished it as well.
The full title of the book is In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Pollan gripes about the industrialization of food and the reduction of food to a congregation of nutrients. He cites changes in culture related to food. In the end, he offers tips for what he considers the optimal way of eating.
Despite some coverage of nutrition science, this book is a quick read. You could scan the final three chapters over coffee at the bookstore and have pulled out the pith; the rest seems to be a high level summary of other more detailed books. He mentions my favorite recent book on nutrition science – Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes – several times, with both praise and criticism. If you’re interested in the studies of Weston Price or the fallacy of the lipid hypothesis, consider this book a lightweight introduction. In fact, at times In Defense of Food reads like a college term paper, pulling from several sources but drawing few new conclusions.
Pollan summarizes those conclusions in the image on the book cover, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Okey doke. Nothing I disagree with there. Those are also the titles of the final three chapters, where he offers more specific recommendations such as, “shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle” and “try not to eat alone.” If you are the type of person who would pick up a book about eating whole foods in the first place, some of these are so obvious as to be stupefying, which makes me wonder who the intended audience might be. Is this intended as a primer? Was he jostling for a spot on Oprah’s couch where rows of awed sheep would break into applause as O bellowed, “Eat meals! That’s it! You’re a genius, Michael!”?
But I shouldn’t be so harsh. I’ll admit, I’m mocking for fun. It’s not a bad book. It’s a simplistic book, but the recommendations therein are pretty good. Borrow it from the library and save your money for tasty real food.
