Table of contents for Book Reviews - 2008

  1. What I’m Reading: The Blind Watchmaker
  2. What I’m Reading: Good Calories, Bad Calories
  3. What I’m Reading: The World Without Us
  4. What I’m Reading: In Defense of Food
  5. What I’m Reading: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved
  6. What I’m Reading: Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal
  7. What I’m Reading: Holy Cows and Hog Heaven
  8. What I’m Reading: The Fattening Of America
  9. What I’m Reading: Wild Fermentation
  10. What I’m Reading: The Road To Immunity
  11. What I’m Reading: The Farmer And The Grill

20184185.JPG

I finished reading In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan a few days ago. All in all, it was a well-written, easy to follow and comprehend book.

Pollan’s message is simple and is printed right on the front cover: “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” Those seven words completely sum up what is written on the next 201 pages. You could actually stop there if you understand what he means with those words. There is little else other than expounding on that message in the rest of the book. Ninety-nine percent of it is stuff that I’ve either read before or already deduced on my own.

Before I was done with the Introduction, I was already thinking, “I’ve been saying that for awhile now.” Things like “If it has a health claim, it’s probably not good for you” and “avoid foods with nutrition labels.” Pollan summarizes the differences between food and food products and, harkening back to the first two words in his credo, tells us to eat food. Food is easy to find; it’s the real stuff in the produce aisle. Food products are easy to recognize too; they are in boxes with ingredients lists a half-mile long. “If you’re great-great-grandmother would recognize it as food, eat it” is a good message to take from this book.

Pollan did a good job of dissecting the reductionist science of nutritionism, a double-edged sword that has both benefits and drawbacks. Of course, the drawbacks are that when a new vitamin or compound, such as omega-3 fatty acids, is discovered, food manufacturers re-engineer their food products to boast the new claim on the label. We’ve all seen the claims: “Now with Omega-3s,” “Heart Healthy,” and “A Good Source of Whole Grains!”

But the other side of nutritionism, a side that I see as beneficial, is that we do understand the compounds in our foods that are helpful. For instance, we are starting to understand the role of omega-3s in health and we know that they come, largely, from fish. The benefit comes in eating more fish to introduce more omega-3s, not from food manufacturers sticking omega-3s in their margarine. Nutritionism can help us understand which foods are important components of the diet. If nutritionism would take aim at some sacred cows (cough *grains* cough), we’d see that the foods we really should be including in our eating plans are those that our Paleolithic ancestors would recognize as food.

He did talk a bit about whether conventionally-raised animals should be considered food or food products. Depending on one’s definition of the word, a steak from a CAFO-fattened cow is certainly “in it’s natural state” and it’s most certainly recognizable by our ancestors. Unfortunately, a cow fed grains, antibiotics, growth hormones, and industrial wastes is most certainly not natural. My thoughts are that a conventionally-raised steak is an altered food, though not so alien to the body as an Oreo cookie. It’s a tough distinction because most of our meat does come from an industrialized process of producing it rather than from a holistic, environmentally-sound process.

I would’ve liked if he would’ve spent more time talking about where to find properly-raised meats. In the end, his reasoning for “Mostly plants” boils down to the common studies showing vegetarians to be healthier than meat-eaters. But he never broke it down to discuss the whys or to look at confounding factors such as an overall more healthful lifestyle. It seems as if Pollan took it at face-value that vegetarians and near-vegetarians would be better off than the more carnivorous amongst us due to higher plant consumption, a notion which has never been proven when compared to a meat-eating, but non-Western-style diet (i.e., Paleo, Primal, Protein Power, etc). I think a good service to his readers would’ve been to help them understand that not all meat needs to be avoided and that animals raised in an environment that they are evolved for, such as on a pasture, are quite healthful.

In the end, I give it a 7/10. It might be a better book than I’m giving it credit for, but my bias is that there was nothing new in the book for me. For the average eater, this book would be a good introduction to proper nutrition (i.e., just eat real food and you’re pretty much there), but for those of us that have already devoted the time to reading books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Politics, Good Calories, Bad Calories, and The End of Food, it offers little of value other than reading a well-written nutrition tome. It borders a bit much on promoting vegetarianism, which those of us here know isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be, though it is better than what most people are eating.

Previous in series Next in series

If you enjoyed this post, share it on StumbleUpon or Health Ranker (or both!)
Print This Post Print This Post

Tags: , , , ,