Book Review : In Defense Of Food

This will be the first of many, that's right many, book reviews. These reviews will not be exhaustive, but they should provide an overview of the books theme that may spark your curiousity.

Michal Pollan's In Defense Of Food focuses on the way we look at food in the United States. Simply put, Americans look at food in a different way than the rest of the world. Instead of viewing eating and food through a social and cultural lens Americans have skewed the appearance of food. Nutritionism or the practice of viewing foods in terms of their nutrient contents has drastically altered how we eat in America.

Nutritionism allows us to look at foods in terms of the individual factors that make up a particular food instead of looking at a food as a whole. What this allows food processors, not the term processors, to do is formulate foods in accordance with whatever nutrient is deemed beneficial. Examples include products claiming to be low fat, reduced sugar, or whole grain. For that matter any food that makes a health claim should probably be avoided.

The Twentieth Century saw the rise of the food industry in America. With it came war time food production and eventually the movement towards stow-able and processable foods. As food became an extremely profitable part of the American economy and technology advanced to allow for increased production food moved from local to nationwide markets. The importance of quantity over quality also took hold and farmer looked to find crops with the best yields. In effect corn and soy, which have the best ability to fight off potential threats, have become two large ingredients in the food industry. Corn and soybeans while in their natural forms are not particularly harmful, but when formulated into oils and various forms of sweeteners, amongst countless uses, the two crops become less of a food and more of as synthetic "food like substance".


The main point that I want to get across in this review is that too many of the foods we eat are not really food anymore. Cocoa Puffs with "whole grain" are just a bunch of puzzle pieces, nutrients, thrown together without formulating any type of image. Our bodies do not recognize these random blobs of nutrients Digestion and the processing of what we eat is a complicated and evolutionary process. Our bodies recognize the tomato as a whole, not just the antioxidants in it. Salmon is not just healthy because it contains protein, but also because of the host of other ingredients that make up its whole.

Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. Is Pollan's general prescription for eating. The real equation entails quite a bit of minutia. He gives a good list of rules to achieve eating "Food". Here are a few.
-Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
-Avoid food products that make health claims.
-Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and avoid the center.

The main lesson I take away from In Defense Of Food is that while there may be many ways to breakdown nutrient intake. A la "Atkins" or "low carb", or "low fat" diets. The most important aspect is to avoid foods that are not really foods at all. Be conscious of what you are putting into your body. Finally, quality food products although probably more expensive will be nourishing and healthy than an abundance of processed "foods". All calories are not necessarily equal.

For more info READ THE BOOK. It is really interesting and pretty easy to get through as well. If I can read it. So can you!