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 enlarge | Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $11.84
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Rating:  192 reviews
Sales Rank: 115
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1594201455
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9781594201455
ASIN: 1594201455
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Showing reviews 141-145 of 192
 Enlightening February 14, 2008
anono
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very well written and entertaining book. It's the kind of information that confirms what you may have always suspicioned. Well documented, with easily understood reasoning.
Are YOU Orthorexic? February 14, 2008
takingadayoff (Las Vegas, Nevada)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Michael Pollan in his In Defense of Food says that orthorexia nervosa is a new disorder. It is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. You can tell a lot about a society by the diseases that are prevalent. While orthorexia is not yet officially recognized by the medical establishment, it is being noticed by more doctors. Individuals may suffer from orthorexia, but Pollan goes on to describe an entire society (ours) that worries that it is poisoning itself in a variety of ways.
In Defense of Food is not as focused as Pollan's previous book. It's light and fluffy, a delicious croissant compared to the chewy fiber-filled 12-grain loaf that was The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. In spite of that, there is plenty to think about in In Defense of Food.
Much of the book discusses nutritionism, which looks at a food as the sum of its parts. Instead of seeing an apple as a whole thing, proponents of nutritionism would see it as a collection of chemicals and nutrients. Pollan explains why looking at food in this way is a big mistake. He also takes a look at how some other cultures interact with food. He finds that the French have a pretty healthy relationship with their food and suggests that we might learn from them. He advocates adopting the slow food movement, not just preparing food slowly, but eating it slowly. He gives us some rules of thumb that make sense, such as "Avoid food products that make a health claim." It's a good idea to be skeptical of health claims, as well as terms such as "natural" and "organic". The government is no help at all when it comes to keeping food safe and helpfully labeled.
You may come away from In Defense of Food thinking that the best you can do, short of producing all your own food, is to not eat much of anything at all. Or you might throw caution to the wind and ignore the constantly changing flood of nutrition advice and health warnings. It's enough to drive anyone to orthorexia.
I'm adding In Defense of Food to my list of favorites on diet and nutrition:
Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
Fantastic Book February 13, 2008
Zora Hurston (Philadelphia, PA)
The Omnivore's Dilemma was Prof. Pollan's masterpiece. It described the American Food system, thus setting the stage for the birth of the local food movement and other attempts to disengage from it. It was a life changing book, even for those of us who avoid the center of the supermarket. In this follow-up he exposes the ideology of nutritionism and it is again a triumph. He describes how the food industry, nutritionists, the pharmaceutical industry, the government and others have caused us to rely on experts to figure out how to eat -something human beings have done since the beginning of time (and somehow survived). Believe me, it is not an accident. We have come to judge food by its nutritional value, whether it is fake or real, processed or natural. Somehow V-8 juice becomes as good as, if not better than real vegatables, margarine better than butter (even if it began as imitation butter). Once this ideology is exposed, you realize just how much of an ideology it is, for it is absolutely everywhere and it is almost impossible to think around. But, he convinced this reader that we must.
If you want to eat locally, eat naturally and enjoy your food (again), this book will be a joy and highly informative. Profesor Pollan is also an excellent writer and story teller, so not only is the logic unasailable, but it is a very, very good read.
 Eating algorithms February 13, 2008
thor9 (Richmond, VA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Pollan's earlier book - The Omnivore's Dilemma (TOD) was a terrific eyeopener into the industrial agricultural complex. It made me take a closer look at food labels and proliferation of ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup. Here he shifts his focus to the unholy cabal of nutrition "science", government and the food industry. A section of the book is devoted to how the way we eat and importantly what we eat has completely changed in just the past few decades. Clocking just around 200 pages, this book is quite a quick read. Other reviewers have already mentioned the division of the book into three sections and I must say that I found the first two a bit unsatisfactory (more on this later)
I simply loved what Pollan calls "eating algorithms" and he makes some of his best arguments while advocating these in the third section. Most importantly, the avoidance of foods that contain more than 5 ingredients - his dissection of the 40 or so (!!) components of Sara Lee's White Bread is particularly enlightening. A shift from cheap, empty calories to a truly omnivore diet (perhaps from patronizing local farmers markets).
And one that really stood out for me - "avoid (packaged) food products that make health claims".
Why the 4 stars instead of 5? For one, I found a large chunk of the book making essentially the same points. TOD was an extremely fascinating read with a lot of nuggets of information and was truly a page turner. This book was not quite as replete with information; instead I felt like he was belaboring the point (however useful it was). The first parts of the book basically stated that food was more than the sum of its parts (ie nutrients) which is very accurate. To be fair, he was driving home the flaws of a reductionist approach to nutrition, but there were paragraphs that I felt I just read, particularly those linking certain nutrients with diseases.
Also, while I completely agreed with his finding flaws with science taking a reductionist approach, a large section of the book hinged on using the one review paper as a reference. Using the same skepticism to "nutritionism" that Pollan uses, one would find this approach rather inconsistent. In fact the paper by Hu, also points out that the 2000 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend the public to "choose a diet that is low in saturated fat and cholesterol and moderate in total fat" and further state - "These guidelines, if followed, can have substantial potential in further reducing rates of CHD in the U.S". So an assertion that scientists have somehow been covering up their previous lack of understanding is a bit harsh.
The other problem with the book is that it completely ignores the effect of lifestyle on our health. Yes, this is an eater's manifesto but he does not even consider that perhaps our lack of exercise and lifestyle choices may be key factors affecting our health (or illhealth) in addition to our terrible diet. Pollan makes excellent points and most of what he writes should be well heeded but as far as this book was concerned, he raised the bar so high with TOD that perhaps I expected more.
Kudos to Michael Pollan for raising awareness to such a vital topic!
A very important book February 13, 2008
D. Rawlins (Charlotte, NC)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is one of the most important books on food that has been written in the modern age. It establishes its thesis--that what we eat is important--defends it well, then lays out an easy to follow plan.
This book has changed my life and health and that of my family.
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