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 enlarge | Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $11.84
You Save: $10.11 (46%)
New (75) Used (34) Collectible (5) from $10.33
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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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 161-165 of 192
 The best book I've read on healthy eating February 3, 2008
Louie's Mom (Dallas)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've always been skeptical of fad diets like Atkins, Beverly Hills, etc. because all have obvious downsides. For instance, high protein diets can stress the kidneys. This is the first book I have read that takes into account the last 50 years of scientific knowledge about food with a practical approach that can be followed forever. I'll be better about reading food labels and will continue my "buy local" practice of buying at the farmer's market when possible. I'll still succumb to some things like ice cream and fruits imported from South America in the winter, but I'll increase the amount of my diet that meets the author's guideline for healthy food - no more than 5 or 6 ingredients, no high fructose corn syrup, grass fed beef rather than grain fed, and lots of leaves.
 A must read! ...some more advise February 2, 2008
gecko
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I agree with all of the other 5 star reviews, this book should be a must read for every American (especially parents).
I think that most of the book is commonsense and the advice is probably easy to follow for anyone with a healthy lifestyle. But what about the other 3/4s of Americans? Why is it so hard for Americans to change their lifestyle and eating habits? Why are we so junk food and snack obsessed? It can't be all marketing. (next book, Pollan?)
I guess the first step is reading this book, but after that we need some self restraint. Sometimes being hungry is uncomfortable, sugar does taste good, cooking well definitely takes some practice, owning cable and having a nice TV isn't necessary but healthy food is, etc..
My only suggestion (from experience) for people trying to change their eating habits is to go cold turkey. If you want to give up chips don't just limit yourself to a small bag a week but cut it out completely, and never look back. After about a month you won't crave it anymore. Same thing with eating smaller portions.
Good luck.
Nutritionism comes to my house sometimes February 1, 2008
M. Bauer (New York, USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Mr. Pollan delivers good advice for, and a sound assessment of, the American diet. I believe so strongly in this advice that I've ordered 10 copies for my family and friends (if you're one of them happy birthday).
I can see Mr. Pollan's argument at my own dinner table. My wife has two friends, all of us parents, who couldn't have more differing attitudes toward feeding their children.
The first friend is a nutritionist at heart, but not by trade. She can tell you everything you'd ever what to know about fiber. She literally *fears* certain foods and feeds her kids "cookies" that taste and look like wood-chips with road-tar, saying "these are much better than chocolate!" When her kids won't eat something "good" for them she goes to great efforts to disguise it so they will. Her kids seem healthy enough. When she says "you're kids eat that!" she means that the food in question isn't "good for you."
The other friend is French and a wonderful cook (sorry for the stereotype but it's true). She feeds her kids exactly what she eats and takes a lot of effort to be sure it's "good" food. Her kids don't always eat all of, or sometimes any of, what they are given either. To which this friend shrugs her shoulders and says "this is what we're eating" with the belief that over time her kids will see that what she eats is "good" and come to like it too. Her kids seem healthy enough. When she says "you're kids eat that!" she means that the food isn't "good" or even food.
Okay, both friends can be a bit overbearing about their food sometimes. Still, you got to prefer whispered comments about the poor quality of the chocolate over quibbling over the amount of soluble fiber in your cake.
Mike
 Ugh! January 30, 2008
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
26 out of 151 found this review helpful
Nutritionists often change their minds, as new evidence comes in. Thus, per Pollan, we should stop paying attention to them. Doctors and nuclear scientists also sometimes change their minds - should we also disdain their thoughts?
It's true that Americans' health has deteriorated in some ways over recent decades - eg. the alarming growth of obesity. Pollan suggests this also damns nutritionists. Forget about eating TOO MUCH - eg. the larger portions and enticements for super-sizing, reduced physical exertion in our daily lives, and ignoring the universal advice of nutritionists (avoid animal fats, eat a balanced meal, etc.). Pollan also wants to associate (blame?) increasing heart disease on nutritionists - but what about the fact that it is decreasing?
"In Defense of Food" cannot be defended - too much hair-splitting and absurd logic. I cannot be convinced that nutritionists and the marketers that use them do not/can not improve food - eg. niacin added to bread, iodine in salt, etc. We simply don't know enough to do so as well as in animals because the required scientific testing is often not possible or frowned upon.
 I Just Don't Know January 27, 2008
Tonya (New York)
8 out of 48 found this review helpful
I'm a working woman - I have four jobs and they take up all my time. I am also overweight and in recovery from so much abuse - my whole life has been abuse. So I try to treat my body right and do what the good Lord intended me to do with it - after so many years of abuse and trrible behavior it shows. So i like to read books about food and such. Maybe I am ignorant - it wouldnt be the first time some big shot man has made me feel that but this book was hard to read. The whole first part just talks about all these historical facts about food. I wanted to know what i shoudl and shouldn;t eat - and he does say that later on but I was so confused and lost by the time I was done that i don't think I got much out of it. My sponser Pam said I needed to have patience and read it again - but she doesn;t work four jobs to try and stay off welfare and food stamps - and I am pretty sure most of what he tells you to eat instead in here I can;t get on food stamps. So i gave Pam her book back and said I woudl rather hear about it on Oprah. If you went to Harvard maybe this is for you, but I work all the time and try to behave righteously and am not a liberal so this wasn't for me.
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