In Defense of Food

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
Author: Michael Pollan 2007 205pp
My rating: 3*
Started January 27 2008, Finished January 29 2008

A quick, informative and frequently provocative read which though as ever enlivened by Pollan’s supple prose, is not as essential as his previous disquisition on food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Whereas TOD explored how food is produced in the US, In Defense answers the question begged by its predecessor: given the various environmental and ethical problems with how most of the food available in the US is grown (manufactured?) what should one eat?
The first part of the In Defense discusses “nutritionism”, attempts by science to understand the health consequences of various foods in terms of a small subset of their nutritional components, a terribly reductive, only-game-in-town approach which has result in much wrongheaded (and often-conflicting) dietary advice. Nutritionism, combined with the ingenuity of the food processing industry and government agriculture policy, Pollan writes “has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished.” The second part of the book dares to provide specific dietary recommendations: eliminate processed food – food related substances that “your great-grandmother” would have trouble identifying, eat primarily vegetables though a little meat is fine and may actually be salubrious and finally, practice moderation – don’t eat too much. This advice may seem commonsensical, but Pollan points out its message has been lost to us in a world where toxic concoctions of hydrogenated fats and high fructose corn syrup receive heavy promotion while the time tested panaceas over in the produce aisle languish in “the silence of the yams.”