In Defense of Food

Seven simple words: Eat food, not a lot, mostly plants. That’s Michael Pollan’s Eater’s Manifesto and the premise of this remarkable little book about getting back to eating real food and solving the health problems that plague the American culture. So, I loved Pollan’s previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and couldn’t wait to read this follow-up which was touted as taking his vast research and putting it in more personal terms of how we eat. I was amazed at what a great book this was. Easy to read, sensible and sane concepts and very easy to manage suggestions of how to be more healthy Americans. Ever wonder why every other culture on the planet eats contrary to what our “experts” say we should eat and yet don’t have the problems with obesity and diabetes and heart disease that we do in America? Well, this little book will open your eyes. Did you know that most of what we purchase in the grocery stores couldn’t even be labeled as food until the ’70’s when the FDA and Congress overturned a rule that said if it was imitation food products that it had to be labeled as such? The first part, Eat Food, of his manifesto is amazingly simple in concept and yet pretty hard to do if you don’t pay attention to what you are really eating. The second part, Not A Lot, is also pretty simple in concept until you take a real look at food portions and compare our eating habits as a nation with other cultures. There’s something to be said about quality not quantity that will have lasting health benefits. And finally, Mostly Plants, shows how what we eat and how it has changed over time has become so different than what our bodies really have the capacity to handle – which explains why so many of us are fat and why so many of us get sick. He wraps it up with some great AND EASY rules of thumb to navigate our plethora of food choices and hopefully put people on a road back to the health we enjoyed before industrialization of food without having to leaving civilization to do it. If you’ve ever wanted to get a glimpse of the topic but didn’t want all the science, this is a great place to start! You’ll be hitting the farmers market and screaming “no high fructose corn syrup” with the best of us in no time…