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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

by Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

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ISBN13: 9780143114963
ISBN10: 0143114964
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma, Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not real. These edible foodlike substances are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by nutrients, and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food. Writing In Defense of Food, and affirming the joy of eating, Pollan suggests that if we would pay more for better, well-grown food, but buy less of it, we'll benefit ourselves, our communities, and the environment at large. Taking a clear-eyed look at what science does and does not know about the links between diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about the question of what to eat that is informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrientapproach. In Defense of Food reminds us that, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, the solutions to the current omnivore's dilemma can be found all around us. In looking toward traditional diets the world over, as well as the foods our families-and regions-historically enjoyed, we can recover a more balanced, reasonable, and pleasurable approach to food. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.

Review

" Michael Pollan [is the] designated repository for the nation's food conscience."

-Frank Bruni, The New York Times

" A remarkable volume . . . engrossing . . . [Pollan] offers those prescriptions Americans so desperately crave."

-The Washington Post

"A tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be redced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential... [a] lively, invaluable book." --Janet Maslin, The New York TImes

" In Defense of Food is written with Pollan's customary bite, ringing clarity and brilliance at connecting the dots."

-The Seattle Times

Synopsis

#1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Food Rules

Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion--most of what we're consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become. With In Defense of Food, Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

"Michael Pollan is the] designated repository for the nation's food conscience."
-Frank Bruni, The New York Times

" A remarkable volume . . . engrossing . . . Pollan] offers those prescriptions Americans so desperately crave."
-The Washington Post

"A tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be redced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential... a] lively, invaluable book."
--Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"In Defense of Food is written with Pollan's customary bite, ringing clarity and brilliance at connecting the dots."
-The Seattle Times

Michael Pollan's most recent book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation--the story of our most trusted food expert's culinary education--was published by Penguin Press in April 2013, and in 2016 it serves as the inspiration for a four-part docuseries on Netflix by the same name.

Synopsis

From the author of the bestselling "The Omnivore's Dilemma" comes this bracing and eloquent manifesto that shows readers how they might start making thoughtful food choices that can enrich their lives and enlarge their sense of what it means to be healthy. (Consumer Health)

Synopsis

Michael Pollan's last book , The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

 


About the Author

Michael Pollan is the author of eight books: Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire, which received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best nonfiction work of 2001 and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon, and the national bestellers, Food Rules, The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and


Table of Contents

In Defense Of Food Introduction: An Eater's Manifesto

I. The Age Of Nutritionism

One: From Foods to Nutrients

Two: Nutritionism Defined

Three: Nutritionism Comes to Market

Four: Food Science's Golden Age

Five: The Melting of the Lipid Hypothesis

Six: Eat Right, Get Fatter

Seven: Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Eight: The Proof in the Low-Fat Pudding

Nine: Bad Science

Ten: Nutritionism's Children

II. The Western Diet And The Diseases of Civilization

One: The Aborigine in All of Us

Two: The Elephant in the Room

Three: The Industrialization of Eating: What We Do Know

1. From Whole Foods to Refined

2. From Complexity to Simplicity

3. From Quality to Quantity

4. From Leaves to Seeds

5. From Food Culture to Food Science

III. Getting Over Nutritionism

One: Escape from the Western Diet

Two: Eat Food: Food Defined

Three: Mostly Plants: What to Eat

Four: Not Too Much: How to Eat

Acknowledgments

Sources

Resources

Index


5 5

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 5 (5 comments)

`
jaimster916 , January 06, 2013
An interesting & thoughful approach to understanding and making healthy food choices. Loved the international connections

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librariphile , October 21, 2012 (view all comments by librariphile)
Even if it's obvious and I've already learned it, I love the way MP shares it. It's pretty basic, but still difficult: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Who else would/could provide algorithms and not be obnoxious?

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Jordi , January 03, 2012
Brilliant yet simple. This is the best book I have read so far about food and your diet. A must read!

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emmakaye , January 30, 2010 (view all comments by emmakaye)
This is such a fantastic book. Everyone who shops for groceries should read it. I would even make it required reading in high schoolers' English classes. Pollan makes so much sense about what is food and the other stuff brought to us by corporations. It taught me to take the time to read labels--and put back on the shelf those items whose ingredients I couldn't pronounce. A good companion to this book are the Mad Men DVDs whose underlying message is 'Watch out for the stories that advertising agency people and their clients, again corporations, are selling.'

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grevillea , May 13, 2009 (view all comments by grevillea)
Michael Pollan has written an "Eater's Manifesto" that it well-researched and a pleasure to read. His advice - "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - is simple and easy to follow. It has changed the way I think about food choices, shopping, and consumption. It's written with an American audience in mind, but I think that anyone eating a "western" diet can take away something important from this book.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780143114963
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
04/28/2009
Publisher:
PENGUIN PUTNAM TRADE
Pages:
244
Height:
.70IN
Width:
5.40IN
Age Range:
18 and up
Grade Range:
13 and up
Copyright Year:
2009
UPC Code:
2800143114965
Author:
Michael Pollan
Subject:
Food habits
Subject:
Sports and Fitness-Medicine Nutrition and Psychology

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