in defense of food an eater's manifesto by michael pollan

He tells us to eat more plants, but never more saturated fat. He tells us to eat less meat and that just about any old traditional diet will do. But we may not get there from here using his directions, because there is a fundamental disconnect between his excellent analysis and some of his recommendations-often obscured by his enormous skill as a writer. His goal is to help us reclaim our health and happiness as eaters by opting out of the Western Diet. Take time to prepare meals yourself, and sit down at the table with family and friends to enjoy it together in a leisurely way. Buy a good portion of it from local farmers who raise “well-grown food from healthy soils ” or better still, grow some of it yourself, if only a pot of herbs. At the end of the book, as he fleshes out these simple phrases, he offers invaluable guidelines to help reprogram the victims of nutritionism: Accept as food only things that your great-grandmother would have recognized as such.

His antidote to the resulting confusion is this simple admonition: “Eat food. Nutritionism is complex and reductionist, Pollan says. Food becomes nothing more than a nutrient delivery system, and the distinction between whole and processed foods is lost. We then begin to think of food only in terms of bodily health, and lose sight of its pleasurable and social aspects. Because these are abstract and invisible, we need scientists and journalists to explain them to us. Essentially, nutritionism is the widely shared but unexamined assumption that the key to understanding food lies in its individual nutrients. It is the central theme for his powerful case against our modern food culture. The concept of “Nutritionism” is one of the catchy hooks upon which he hangs his story. As a result, food itself now needs to be defended against the Nutritional Industrial Complex, which conspires to disassemble and then reconfigure it in beguiling new forms, in response to ever changing nutritional ideology.

He gives us a history of the confluence of well intentioned government policy, flawed science, industrial profiteering, and regulatory idiocy. It has much to recommend it, especially when he delineates how we came to the current sorry state of affairs in which human beings-who have been eating for millions of years-suddenly find themselves in need of expert guidance for this most basic activity. It feels a bit like blasphemy, then, to take issue with his current offering, In Defense of Food. No wonder so many people concerned with the future of agriculture and our food supply began to think of him as Saint Michael. With his best selling The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he opened the eyes of the masses to the ecological and ethical dimensions of our food choices. He can take a complex subject and weave its many threads into a seamless narrative that is both highly informative amd eminently readable. Michael Pollan is an elegant and engaging writer.

Nourishing Traditional Diets with Sally Fallon Morell.

In defense of food an eater's manifesto by michael pollan