I already mentioned that I was reading In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
In Defense Of Food
It seems weird that such a book would have to be written. A defense of food? An eater’s manifesto? But the common sense contained in this book is all things that deep down we should know, and sometimes do know, but the knowledge has been lost or confused by the actions of the food industry and it’s marketing. The common sense it contains is desperately needed considering we our a nation of mostly overweight and obese people with an obsession with healthy eating (or health claims at least).
As he mentions in the first section, the author’s goal is to “help us reclaim our health and happiness as eaters.” The idea is that much of what we are now eating is not actually food and how we are eating it is not actually eating. This might seem like an absurd statement at first glance but the case is strongly made in the following pages of the book.
In the beginning Pollan gives away this main answer to the question of what we should do to be healthy: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. He then follows that with three sections of the book including a in depth look at nutritionism, a study of the Western Diet and the diseases it causes, and a guide of how to overcome nutritionism and eat a healthy and sane diet.
Pollan makes the case that we have been harmed by the nutrition science and the food marketers. Basically nutrition science has been broken down so that they study nutrients, instead of whole foods, and those claims are of studies are often used by food marketers to sell processed foods. Overall we are left confused on what we should eat and how what we eat will affect our health. It’s not hard considering the fact that things like high fructose corn syrup and nutella have a advertising budget for commercials to convince you they are healthy. With the bombardment of messages about what is good and what is not, it’s easy to be confused. Certainly this is true, as even those of us who read and try to figure things out are left confused by the constant barrage of food studies telling us contradictory things. We try to eat “scientifically” following the advice of what nutrients to eat and when, instead of enjoying our food fully and as a whole.
In the second section of his book, Pollan makes the case that the Western diet is highly linked to the chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and more. He details the story of how we eat has changed radically since the industrialization of our food and that the diet we have now – high in processed foods and sugar; low in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains – makes people both sick and fat. He explains the four biggest changes to our traditional diets: from whole foods to refined, from complexity to simplicity (the loss of micronutrients in food because of the changes in growing it and processing it), from quality to quantity (most of which ending up as sugar, fats, and refined grains that lead to people being both overfed and undernourished), from leaves to seeds (the move away from having green plants at the base of the diet), from food culture to food science (relying on science to tell us how to eat instead of our culture and our bodies).
The best part of the book in my opinion is where the author explains that humans can be healthy on a number of very different traditional diets. It almost matters less about what you are eating and more that it’s a way of eating that sustained people for many years before our food changed. He proposes it is possible to escape the Western diet and it’s effects about a dozen personal rule for eating that improve both health and the pleasure of eating. The rules are not a diet; he doesn’t tell you what to eat. But with such a confusing food landscape to navigate he tries to give some guidance for a world where even whole foods have been tainted by the Western diet (animals raised on the Western diet change the meat and therefore what you are eating).
The basic rules of eating from In Defense of Food
Buy the book to read them in detail In Defense of Food
Eat food. Food defined.
- Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
- Avoid food products containing ingredients A) unfamiliar B) unpronounceable C) more than five in number, or that include D) high fructose corn syrup.
- Avoid food products that make health claims.
- Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
- Get out of your supermarket whenever possible. (CSA, farmer’s markets!)
Mostly plants. What to eat.
- Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
- You are what you eat eats too.
- If you have space buy a freezer.
- Eat like an omnivore.
- Eat well-grown foods from healthy soils.
- Eat wild foods when you can.
- Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
- Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. Or the Greeks. (Traditional food culture!)
- Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
- Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.
- Have a glass of wine with dinner.
Not too much. How to eat.
- Pay more, eat less.
- Eat meals.
- Do all of your eating at a table.
- Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.
- Try not to eat alone.
- Consult your gut. (Full? Stop!)
- Eat slowly.
- Cook, and if you can, plant a garden.
Many of his policies and rules involve more work, time, and money to prepare the food you eat. He has a great point that sadly may go unnoticed in our fast food culture that has no time for anything.
Personally I’ve been taking more time and effort to prepare my food and I’ve found that it helps my enjoyment of it. I love the food I spent time on much more than anything I can buy prepared by someone else. It’s sad what we’ve done to food in our culture and personally I’m sick of it. In my own life I’ve slowly been moving toward eating like Pollan outlined in the last section of his book.
Get Michael Pollan’s Defense of Food
I completely recommend this book to … everyone. If you haven’t read it yet you should. Buy it on Amazon.
- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Kindle Edition)
- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Hardcover Edition)
- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Paperback Edition)
- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Audiobook CD)
What did you think of In Defense of Food? Do you follow those eating guidelines?
Excellent review Mary! You know I am with you on this one and it’s why I created my (Real) Food Rules! blog (based on Pollan’s follow-up book “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual”). I think if we were all to follow these rules we’d see a big change in our overall health and happiness!
Yeah, I love that part of your blog! It’s a very good idea. :)
I’ve been wanting to read this. It seems similar to how I eat already … or at least try to. Interesting about the “Pay more, eat less.” because that’s something I’d intuitively adopted recently. Especially when it comes to meats. I’m buying quality meat from Whole Foods (usually grass fed, etc.) which usually costs more but we’re buying smaller cuts (which kind of equals out anyway!). The taste is out of this world vs. simply buying cheap and for quantity AND it’s really given us a the opportunity to savor and appreciate our food.
.-= Dani @ WRW´s last blog ..Refocusing: Day 5 =-.
It’s very similar to how I’ve been eating so it was a great reinforcement for me on things I had already been doing/thinking.
The pay more, eat less thing is really the #1 thing that I got from this book because I haven’t previously cared much about that but now I realize it’s important and something I want to do. So my food budget might increase a bit. ;)
Mary, you did a tremendous job with this!!! And I’m glad. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read and it really gives you a sense of why the Western world is so messed up when it comes to weight and health. And it scares me a little, because I’m a little techie and a lot progressive and I think new developments are always good, on balance. But clearly, the only way we’ll become healthy is to eat more like our grandparents did.
Thanks Alan! It really is a great book. I think being progressive and utilizing technology is good, but not at the expensive of our health.
Fabulous review on a book I have not read yet. Thank you for sharing all the good information. I have been cleaning up and tweaking my families diet. It is amazing how much junk there is out there to buy.
I am buying a lot more organic foods. A lot less processed foods and we only eat out about once a week. One change at a time, but in the end they all add up.
Thanks Mary. This is one of the best books I’ve read on the subject as well, he puts things in such plain English that you just nod your head, like ya, that makes so much sense. Five stars from me too!
.-= Rita @ The Giggly Bits´s last blog ..Vegan Week Challenge =-.
What a great review! I’ll have to find it and read it. I like the bit about not eating anything our great grandmothers wouldn’t recognize. So true. Everything is so chok full of preservatives and chemicals that it barely resembles food anymore. I am going to try and follow what he says. Try.
.-= Mad Woman´s last blog ..Her name is Bertha and she’s a lying cow =-.
Iäve had trouble with this book, it’s been on my nightstand for several months and somehow I can’t get myself to finish it, there’s always some other book that I prefer reading. However, your review was so great that I think I’ll give it another try :)
.-= Anne @ Food Loving Polar Bear´s last blog ..Sneeze =-.
I must read this book. I so agree with these premises – I’ve already been focusing on the trinity of: buy what your great-grandmother would recognise; don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients; don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce. I particularly love eating proper butter and not hideous spreads. And organic meat from properly looked after animals tastes so much better you genuinely don’t need to eat quite so much, offsetting the higher price. It has to be said that my eating principles have made me a lot fatter than I used to be, so maybe I should concentrate more carefully on the green leafy foods thing. Spinach salad for lunch it is.
.-= Ten Pounds´s last blog ..Janey – great for the old self-esteem =-.
I loved that book. You should also read his other books. Omnivore’s Dilemma was also very good. I’m reading Botany next!
.-= carrie´s last blog ..Summertime is near! =-.
Hey long time lurker first time poster! I had a huge problem with my weight for years. Some things worked and some didn’t. Overall, I would say diet and exercise played a big part- but what diet and what exercise makes even more of a difference!
One interesting thing I tried was a diet which was supposed to target fat around my hips/butt. Eating just a few specific things caused the weight to melt off. :D
The Diet Solution really helped me, it is worth a try.
Let’s face it. Who wants to be fat, especially women. It is a known fact that obesity in this country has become an epidemic. Why? If you look at TV, you will notice the media is constantly bombarding us with ads about food.
Why are advertising agencies flooding us with so many TV commercials about food, especially about McDonald’s or Burger King? The simple fact is they want you to get fat so you will go out and spend more money on diet pills. This way you can get skinny and then start all over by going back to the fast food joints to get fat again. It is a catch-22 scenario. It is a vicious cycle.
Understand one fact. The heath condition of the majority of people in developed nations has deteriorated to such an extent that it has literally become a crisis. According to experts, about 70% of the adult population living in the U.S is overweight. This means if you are thin and healthy you make up the minority.
This is a sad fact and something that needs to change. To think that the normal way to live is to be out of shape, overweight, and have all kinds of diseases? It is insanity. To think that nine out of ten people are obese is a bad stat. And this is what this country is leading to.
Why is this country leaning toward getting fat? It is because most of us live sedentary lives. Kids are not spending their time running around and playing games outside. Instead, they jump on their video games or spend time surfing the Internet and chatting with friends or others.
Besides the above, people are getting fatter because of the way they eat. They try to grab something quick and end up eating something they should not. Everything that is bought from the store is processed. It is refined. Most foods are packed with chemicals to preserve them for shelf life. We live in a fast-paced world. For this reason people claim they don’t have time to cook or are too tired to. So they grab quick junk foods from corner stores, fast food joints, and restaurants.
The plain and simple fact is that people have become lazy. In order to get out of that, you need to push yourself to maintain your control. You have to act responsibly.
The solution to being overweight is simple. Make smarter food choices, prepare your own meals, and get out and exercise. If you do this, you won’t have to worry about being fat.
You’ve sold this really well Mary, I just put it on reserve at the library, I’m really struggling at the moment and need something to get me back on track, a well timed book recommendation I think. Thanks
.-= D…´s last blog ..Reaching Goals… =-.
I listen keenly to whatever Michael Pollan has to say. Does anyone have a better understanding of food culture?! Gosh. I love him–and that book.
.-= Alexia´s last blog ..Wednesday Weigh-In =-.
I like eating traditional food cultures. It’s not until China and Taiwan got westernized that the obesity rate is increasing dramatically. Plus, Chinese food is super healthy. It’s the Americanized version that is super “fat” and high in sodium.
Anyway, personally, I love eating alone. I like my alone time. I don’t get the “Try not to eat alone” although I do enjoy sharing too. I prefer family style eating over the “order your own plate” kind of thing. It’s just an ingrained habit to order 4 different dishes at dinner and share amongst everybody. However, sometimes I enjoy the comfort of quiet and eating by myself. It just depends.
.-= Jess´s last blog ..The Sunday Wrap =-.
I also loved this book! Great review!
.-= Hanlie´s last blog ..More about Maggie =-.
I really really like the idea of buying better food, even if its more expensive, and eating less of it. It seems in America that we equate happiness with more…more of just about anything and the bigger the better. I loved the book and it was what got me started with eating a lot more veggies.
.-= Cheryl´s last blog ..Herb Heaven . . . And A Recipe! =-.
Maybe no unfamiliar or unpronounceable foods isn’t really a good idea, given Americans’ ignorance? Like I’d never eat quinoa since I didn’t know it, couldn’t pronounce it, etc. (and maybe my grandma wouldn’t have known what it was!). Couscous could have been a stretch too. And I doubt my grandma ever ate salmon in the midwest. Or much citrus. Or a pineapple. Same goes with non-traditional foods. My grandma would think sushi rolls were non-traditional (not to mention the awful thought of eating Japanese food during WWII!). But it’s the lawyer in me looking for exceptions to the basic rules, they all seem quite sensible! I’ll have to check out the book and read for myself.
HAHAHAH! Very good point about that. Way to look for exceptions. :P Basically it’s about eating food that’s traditional to any culture…. and avoiding the fake food that’s been processed to death!
If you loved this one, pick up Food Rules! It’s awesome and can be read quickly. There are some quotes that will always stay with you. I won’t spoil it with sharing my favs so grab the book yourself.
.-= Sara´s last blog ..Topsy Turvy =-.
That sounds great to me. This book has been in queue on my book service for a while. One day itll arrive. I have way too many books on that queue, even at the fast pace I read. This is more my kinda book than that secret book you reviewed. I think I do try to eat that way. Im trying more. Especially with the HFCS and really overprocessed stuff. Really, I just try to eat foods that are healthy-ish and that I enjoy. I make sure to try and enjoy my food and not over analyze it or obsess over it. But since ive been eating healthier and more naturally, and then went on vacation last week, I soo notice the difference when I have to eat crappy food. Bleh. And my sister and her husband eat a lot of processedy foods. I had butter like spread on corn on the cob over at her house way worse than real butter. Anyway, whenever I get to read this, ill prob review it too. Looking forward to it. :)
.-= merri´s last blog ..Five Star Restaurant; Serrano’s Pizza =-.