Uncover the Truth Behind What We Eat: Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Ki: Michael Pollan’s "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" is a compelling and eye-opening book that has significantly transformed the way I perceive food and nutrition. Pollan masterfully navigates the complex world of dietary science and cultural food habits, simplifying it into an enlightening and engaging narrative.

The book’s central thesis, encapsulated in the mantra “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” is both straightforward and profound. Pollan dissects the modern Western diet, challenging the efficacy of processed foods and the pitfalls of relying heavily on dietary supplements. His argument for returning to more traditional diets, rich in natural and whole foods, is backed by thorough research and presented in a manner that is both accessible and thought-provoking.

What I particularly appreciate about this book is its balanced approach. Pollan does not push for radical diet changes but instead advocates for a more mindful and informed approach to eating. His writing is not just informative but also encouraging, guiding readers to make better food choices without feeling overwhelmed.

The historical and cultural context provided...

United States on Nov 19, 2023

Sue: A friend lent me this book. It is one of the best books I have read on this topic. It is very dense with information and describes the transition of food as we have known it over the years. I read it and then I had to order it to have my own copy so I can read it again!!!!

Canada on Aug 25, 2023

Darren Kirby: I have been trying my best, rather piecemeal and unknowingly, to eat somewhat according to the 'rules' discussed in this book. I had never really concerned myself that much with eating and my weight. I have always been reasonably active, and I have never gorged myself all day on sugary snacks and sodas. Thus I always thought of my weight and fitness as reasonable.

Upon reaching my 40s, however, one starts to think more often of mortality and health, and I consciously tried to eat better. Not a fan of fad diets or fasts, and not wanting to give up on the fatty foods that I enjoy in moderation, I surmised that eating modest portions of a wide variety of meals prepared from fresh ingredients and enjoyed somewhat mindfully would be just the ticket.

This is essentially the thesis of Michael Pollan's book. It begins by describing how 'food' has been deconstructed by 'nutritionalism' into little more than macronutrients, and how this has been short-sighted and deleterious to our health in spite of the best intentions of food scientists and nutritionalists. Pollan also describes how growing fresh produce has been reduced to growing as many calories per acre as possible, and...

Canada on Jun 17, 2019

Tyler: Mr. Pollan did a masterful job outlining the folly of nutritionism's ridgid, soulless, and often pseudo-scientific approach to diet. As an eater in the 21st-century Michael's sage advice definitely resonates with me as an individual. With the multitude of voices crying in the internet wilderness, it can be hard to navigate oneself through the tangled mess of what should be a relatively simple thing, deciding what you're going to eat. Mr. Pollan does an excellent job in 'In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto' of grounding the eater in a strikingly insightful and expositional journey through the rise of the MAD diet, eating, nutritionism, and the culture of our food.

Michael's sage advice definitely resonates with me as an individual. With the multitude of voices crying in the internet wilderness, it can be hard to navigate oneself through the tangled mess of what should be a relatively simple thing, deciding what you're going to eat. Mr. Pollan does an excellent job in 'In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto' of grounding the eater in a strikingly insightful and expositional journey through eating, nutritionism, and the culture of our food.

I think, for me...

Canada on Feb 04, 2018

William Jordan: A very persuasive treatise on food. Pollan explains why nutritional advice has not worked out well over the years - individual foodstuffs contain so many different substances that it's hard to know what are the active ingredients, as it were, and when it comes to experimenting and leaving something out of a diet or putting something in, there's the whole field of what else we eat or don't eat (to compensate) to consider too. So this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But then we find that actually there's a lot of skin in this game for food manufacturers who'd like to be able to market processed foods (rather than the simple and pure foodstuffs they are made from) because this is where there's value add in this market and they'd like to market health claims for their processed foods - which also seems generally to be possible…And while humans have evolved to live off a very wide variety of diets in a healthy way, the Western diet hasn't historically been one of them, as we've moved towards chemical treatment of agriculture (impoverishing our basic foodstuffs) and have moved from leaves to grains and then onto refined grains - partly simply for their keeping qualities...

United Kingdom on Aug 01, 2015

Karen Lea Hansen: As a fan of Michael Pollan's previous books, I was excited to read, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Not quite a diet book, Pollan imparts nutrition common sense as he breaks down various theories as to why American's have become so fat.

The first half of Pollan's book is dedicated to understanding nutritional advice given in American over the last century. Pollan picks apart various "ground breaking" nutritional studies and their impact on how we eat. A common thread is how we have moved from our parents and culture telling us what to eat, to putting our faith in the government and nutritional science. Pollan explains how in many ways nutrition is not an accurate science and how many of the top studies are deeply flawed.

Pollan sites 1977 as a year of major shift in attitudes towards nutrition. This was when we made a dramatic shift away from home cooked meals, to the science of pre-packaged foods that were supposedly not only more convenient, but more nutritious. This struck a cord, as I was born in 1977 and I can personally attest to being raised by a working mother, who didn't like or have time to cook, so she put her faith in the food industry. We ate...

United States on Oct 04, 2014

Warren Green: Michael Pollan probably takes his best shot at "nutritionism", in "The Melting Of The Lipid Hypothesis". He states, "The lipid hypothesis (for heart disease) is quietly melting away but no one in the public health community, or the government, seems quite ready to publicly acknowledge it. For fear of what exactly? That we'll binge on bacon double cheeseburgers? More likely that we'll come to the unavoidable conclusion that the emperors of nutrition have no clothes, and never listen to them again."

Pollan's intention seems pretty clear here. Discredit the lipid hypothesis for heart disease, (that low-fat saves the day) and in so doing discredit the whole nutritional science community, with it's thirty years of low-fat dietary recommendations.

Elsewhere he writes, "half the people who have heart attacks don't have elevated cholesterol levels, ( In fact, they do, but North Americans have chosen to call these elevated levels normal ) and about half the people with elevated cholesterol levels do not suffer from CHD". ( coronary heart disease )

"As for the precipitous decline in heart disease during the years of World War 2, that could just as easily be attributed...

Canada on Mar 10, 2009

Gregory R. Ziegler: Food scientists make "fake foods" or "foodlike substances" through the process of adulteration. The most important thing about any food is not its nutrient content, but its degree of processing, and "refining" is especially deleterious, or so says Michael Pollan in In Defense of Food. For Pollan, refined flour is the first industrial fast food.

But the desire for white bread predated the invention of roller mills, as did processes for separating the starchy endosperm from the bran. In a recent paper in the Journal of Food Science, colleagues confirmed consumer preferences for refined over whole wheat bread. We make white bread because that's what people want.

Pollan erroneously believes that grains are refined to extend their shelf life by making them less nutritious to pests. However, refining was often initially done to remove anti-nutritional factors from plant foods, and to his credit, Pollan provides the example of soy processing to inactivate trypsin inhibitor. Cassava, the third largest source of carbohydrates for human food, is poisonous unless processed properly.

Pollan believes that we have an ancient evolutionary relationship with the seeds of...

United States on Mar 13, 2008