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 enlarge | Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $11.94
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Avg. Customer Rating:  163 reviews
Sales Rank: 124
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 Spread the word... July 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If this fabulous book becomes a best-seller, as it should, if enough people read and follow its advice, if we can manage to get the kids on board with healthy eatting (PLEASE write a kid's version, asap), we can put the food processors, food "scientists" on notice that their imitation food is at least one contributing factor behind so many "new" epidemics: bi-polarity in children, autism, ADD, allergies, asthma, diabetes I & II, obesity, etc etc etc.
Thank you Michael Pollan for stating the case for real food so very well. This Saturday, I'm off to the farmer's market.
Intriguing June 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I almost put this book back on the shelf after seeing its sub-subtitle: "Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants." I thought, well, duh, who doesn't know that? I expected yet another rant that we're eating too much of the wrong food, which isn't new and isn't helpful.
But this book posits some interesting reasons why we're eating too much and even more importantly why we're not eating *food*. Until I read Chapter One I had not even considered how long it's been since I looked at an item of food as something in and of itself instead of just as a collection of nutrients. Our grandparents looked at an orange and saw an orange; we look at an orange and see part of our daily allotment of Vitamin C. Yet we really know very little about what's in an orange that's protective to our health. We should eat it because it's delicious and has been part of the human diet for centuries, not because some expert tells us to.
Mr. Pollan also advances the idea that we don't spend enough on food, that if we can afford to we should spend more. This seems counter-intuitive, but in fact he's right. When you spend $6 for a half-gallon of organic, non-homogenized milk, or $4.89 a dozen for eggs from pastured chickens, you really become conscious of the food you're eating.
At the end he provides some practical advice on how to avoid the pressures that cause us to eat too much of the wrong things.
With the rise of the farmer's market in most areas we now have more opportunity than we've had in decades to eat real food. Try it, you'll like it -- that applies to both this book and the real food it advocates.
Pollan Does It Again, Shows Why He's One Of America's Top Health Science Writers June 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
One of the most brilliant diet and health writers of our day has got to be Michael Pollan. As a worthy follow-up to his instant classic The Omnivore's Dilemma, this book comes strongly to the defense of REAL food as opposed to the heavy reliance on packaged creations that dominates the typical American family dinner table. What if most of the diseases we are dealing with have more to do with the diet we are consuming in the fast-paced lifestyle of the 21st century and less to do with whatever the latest nutritional flavor of the day advice is out there? It's a rather thought-provoking exercise that is worth reading every glorious one of these 230-something pages of text. Pollan is on to something HUGE her and I can't wait to see what else he comes up with if he keeps writing about diet in the future.
Let Food Be Your Medicine Bottle June 24, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
As this book is a well written, enjoyable, enlighening read, to see so many positive reviews is wonderful. The author's message really needs to be read and embraced by every American, especially those with the strongest Puritan ethics, who really believe that food isn't meant to be savoured or celebrated. Our Creator gives us all things richly to enjoy. Mouth watering real food is meant to be eaten with gratefulness, leisurely enjoyed with family and friends as the good gift that it is to us from an all loving God. Also, our bodies are more than a machine, and food is more than the fuel. Our bodies are a fearfully and wonderfully made creation and food is a gift meant to enjoyed as it nourishes us. After reading the review, I'm sure you'll understand why my main disagreement with the author concerns his evolutionist viewpoint.
For years my philosophy concerning food has been to "Let your food be your medicine bottle." To finally have an author echo these beliefs and give additional insight as to how to walk them out is truly refreshing. According to Pollen, we should shop for fresh, locally grown foods as much as possible. When going to the supermaket, we are to shop the outside isles of the store, where the whole foods such s meats, eggs, dairy,fuits and vegies are found. It's also important to buy 100% free range meat, dairy and eggs, which don't have growth hormones or antibiotics, aren't crowded into farm factory facilites or fed species inappropriate food and are slaughtered most humanly. Also, it's important to purchase Salmon and other fish from Alaska that aren't tainted with mercury and other industrial waste poisons. I buy organic grains and produce whenever I can, because they are grown on healthier soils. But if the organic produce at the supermarket is wilted, I buy the freshest produce I can find. As Chief Seattle said, "How we treat the land, we treat ourselves." This is also true of how we treat our animals.
The author speaks out against "nutritionalism," which invloves getting so engrossed in the nutritional components of food that we fail to enjoy real food for the sensory delight that it is. Real food isn't a fast food meal eaten on the run, nor is a T.V. dinner eaten alone in front of the television or while working at your desk. Real food is the kind our Grandmother's would have recognized as food and is meant to be enjoyed as a communal dining experience. While not obsessing over the individual nutrients, real food is nutrient dense. Different whole foods provide different nutrients, which when in eaten in combinatiion nourish our bodies most abundantly. Real food definately isn't the refined, nutritionally depleted "edible food like substances" so many people eat today.
If you are wondering why food would ever need to be defended and from whom look around you at the processed junk we call food that most Americans consume. We have been deceived by both the food industry and nutritional science with the approval of the federal government. Also, the drug companies aren't crying all the way to the bank over the billions of dollars sickly Amercians spend on toxic medical treatments and drugs. Our sckyrocketing rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and a long list of other degenerative diseases is the price we are paying for this travesty.
Eat it up June 19, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is a must read. I am very fond of food. Food that is whole, simple, and delicious. This book is valuable in terms of awareness/opening people's eyes to what has happened to our food, and its transformation to "food-like substances". It's informative while not being preachy and to the point. Thank you Michael Pollan for writing this book and verbalizing something that when you break it down is very simple- we have stripped most of our food of all its foodie (nutrient packed) goodness- and accept that what we are being given is ok even though most people have no idea exactly what they are eating.
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