In Defence of Food
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Review
'If you're prone to pondering the nutritional advice we're spoon-fed by 'experts', this book is a very necessary antidote' Timeout 'In Defence of Food ... instantly makes redundant all diet books and 99 per cent of discussions around healthy eating' Daily Mail 'Read this witty book for a healthier life and diet' Times 'Eminently sensible' Evening Standard 'His approach is steeped in honesty and self-awareness. His cause is just, his thinking is clear, and his writing is compelling' Washington Post
Product Description
This book is a celebration of food. By food, Michael Pollan means real, proper, simple food - not the kind that comes in a packet, or has lists of unpronounceable ingredients, or that makes nutritional claims about how healthy it is. More like the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize.
In Defence of Food is a simple invitation to junk the science, ditch the diet and instead rediscover the joys of eating well. By following a few pieces of advice (Eat at a table - a desk doesn't count. Don't buy food where you'd buy your petrol!), you will enrich your life and your palate, and enlarge your sense of what it means to be healthy and happy.
It's time to fall in love with food again.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What can I say about this book, it is simply superb. What Pollan has done in this book is to bring together all the common sense that been learned about food over the last few thousand years and asks if what we've been doing to foods in the last few decades has really been beneficial.
The book begins by looking at modern food (i.e. processed food) and investigated how this `improved' food has impacted upon the health of the last few generations. The results show just how the food we are eating really is affecting our health despite all the miraculous health claims the packaging may have been making. But Pollan goes on to look at the even bigger picture of how this same food may be affecting more than just health, but behaviour of people and just how the "ready in 20 mins" food may effect the family unit too. He goes on to expose some of the lies that the food industries are making with their health claims and just how the inclusion, or exclusion, of certain vitamins, oils etc can actually be having adverse effects upon our health.
I must admit you begin to feel a little hopeless at this point, however this is where the real brilliance begins.
In the final third of the book Pollan explains how we can reclaim the power over our diets and health. He does this, not in some complicated diet, i.e. GI, Atkins, Calorie counting or any of the other ridiculous `weight loss' diets (personal opinion), but by simple easy to follow guidelines (i.e. if a food has more than 5 ingredients, most of which you can't pronounce, then don't by it, or even simpler, buy food that your Great Gran would recognise (that's the yogurt in a tube out then)). Pollan describes how to enjoy food and urges you to spend more than 20mins preparing and eating food in front of the TV, but rather to make food an intrinsic part of your life and your families' life for the benefit of all.
To those of you, like me, who are already love food and are keen to improve the health of your diet, but not at the cost of your enjoyment of food, then this book will guide you to a sensible and life affirming view of food. To those who are already trapped in the ready meal hell (or even worse the weight loss food hell), and are looking to escape, this book is a brilliant place to start, but be warned your belly, body and health are going to thank you for it.
Mr Pollan I thank you for this book.
The book begins by looking at modern food (i.e. processed food) and investigated how this `improved' food has impacted upon the health of the last few generations. The results show just how the food we are eating really is affecting our health despite all the miraculous health claims the packaging may have been making. But Pollan goes on to look at the even bigger picture of how this same food may be affecting more than just health, but behaviour of people and just how the "ready in 20 mins" food may effect the family unit too. He goes on to expose some of the lies that the food industries are making with their health claims and just how the inclusion, or exclusion, of certain vitamins, oils etc can actually be having adverse effects upon our health.
I must admit you begin to feel a little hopeless at this point, however this is where the real brilliance begins.
In the final third of the book Pollan explains how we can reclaim the power over our diets and health. He does this, not in some complicated diet, i.e. GI, Atkins, Calorie counting or any of the other ridiculous `weight loss' diets (personal opinion), but by simple easy to follow guidelines (i.e. if a food has more than 5 ingredients, most of which you can't pronounce, then don't by it, or even simpler, buy food that your Great Gran would recognise (that's the yogurt in a tube out then)). Pollan describes how to enjoy food and urges you to spend more than 20mins preparing and eating food in front of the TV, but rather to make food an intrinsic part of your life and your families' life for the benefit of all.
To those of you, like me, who are already love food and are keen to improve the health of your diet, but not at the cost of your enjoyment of food, then this book will guide you to a sensible and life affirming view of food. To those who are already trapped in the ready meal hell (or even worse the weight loss food hell), and are looking to escape, this book is a brilliant place to start, but be warned your belly, body and health are going to thank you for it.
Mr Pollan I thank you for this book.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Michael Pollan's hard-hitting, witty and possibly life-saving look at food - specifically the shambolic disgrace that is the 'Western Diet', sets its premise out right at the start - we need to:
Eat food. Not too much. Eat more plants.
That first statement might raise a few eyebrows. Surely anything we eat, by definition, is food? Not so. As Pollan shockingly shows, we stopped eating food in the West several decades ago, and began to eat 'nutrients' instead. As part of an ongoing 'reductionism' which gets applied to almost everything. our foods have been picked apart to analyse specific ingredients (in isolation) which are said to harm us or to help us. Politics, big business, whether the food 'industry' - which it has become as most of our food is now manufactured rather than, well, allowed to grow, graze or roam - or the 'health industry' have all benefitted from the 'un' food revolution. The individual consumer pays the price in terms of soaring rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes and more. The planet and future generations pay the price in terms of depleted soil, the rapid fall in biodiversity and an unsustainable way of life. Our non-food is another way we are killing the planet. And ourselves.
Pollan's book shows elegantly and easily how much our food has changed. He urges us not to follow faddy diets which all look at food through single nutrient zealotry - eg 'the Atkins Diet' 'the GI' diet 'the Omega 3 diet'. Look at the labels on any 'packaged' food. A loaf of bread rarely contains the ingredients your great grandmother would have recognised. Not only are there a whole host of 'enriching' additives and 'nutrients' - designed to replace those which should have been naturally within the original foodstuff but which modern farming techniques and agri-breeding for yield rather than anything else has stripped away - but the food will have been subjected to processes further depleting it of its goodness.
We literally consume more of our 'food' because it is giving us less in the way of 'nutrients', as Pollan says, the 'Western diet' manages an unheard of own goal - obesity coupled with malnourishment or deficiency!
Throw out the faddy diet books, throw out the supplements, throw out the 'science' - often bad science - eg margarine being 'better for you than butter' - eat food you can recognise which is simply grown or reared. The food we have evolved to eat over millenia. And recognise that food has always been about more than nutrients - its about our connection to the earth and to each other - food is a part of our culture, cementing and connecting social bonds. As Pollen engagingly shows, food loving cultures such as Italy and France celebrate and enjoy food, as part of life's pleasures,; they don't eat nutrients! And they tend to be healthier. Or at least they were, till 'the Western Diet' (ie McDiet) began its parasitic onslaught into every corner of the globe
Eat food. Not too much. Eat more plants.
That first statement might raise a few eyebrows. Surely anything we eat, by definition, is food? Not so. As Pollan shockingly shows, we stopped eating food in the West several decades ago, and began to eat 'nutrients' instead. As part of an ongoing 'reductionism' which gets applied to almost everything. our foods have been picked apart to analyse specific ingredients (in isolation) which are said to harm us or to help us. Politics, big business, whether the food 'industry' - which it has become as most of our food is now manufactured rather than, well, allowed to grow, graze or roam - or the 'health industry' have all benefitted from the 'un' food revolution. The individual consumer pays the price in terms of soaring rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes and more. The planet and future generations pay the price in terms of depleted soil, the rapid fall in biodiversity and an unsustainable way of life. Our non-food is another way we are killing the planet. And ourselves.
Pollan's book shows elegantly and easily how much our food has changed. He urges us not to follow faddy diets which all look at food through single nutrient zealotry - eg 'the Atkins Diet' 'the GI' diet 'the Omega 3 diet'. Look at the labels on any 'packaged' food. A loaf of bread rarely contains the ingredients your great grandmother would have recognised. Not only are there a whole host of 'enriching' additives and 'nutrients' - designed to replace those which should have been naturally within the original foodstuff but which modern farming techniques and agri-breeding for yield rather than anything else has stripped away - but the food will have been subjected to processes further depleting it of its goodness.
We literally consume more of our 'food' because it is giving us less in the way of 'nutrients', as Pollan says, the 'Western diet' manages an unheard of own goal - obesity coupled with malnourishment or deficiency!
Throw out the faddy diet books, throw out the supplements, throw out the 'science' - often bad science - eg margarine being 'better for you than butter' - eat food you can recognise which is simply grown or reared. The food we have evolved to eat over millenia. And recognise that food has always been about more than nutrients - its about our connection to the earth and to each other - food is a part of our culture, cementing and connecting social bonds. As Pollen engagingly shows, food loving cultures such as Italy and France celebrate and enjoy food, as part of life's pleasures,; they don't eat nutrients! And they tend to be healthier. Or at least they were, till 'the Western Diet' (ie McDiet) began its parasitic onslaught into every corner of the globe
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Everything I read in this books makes complete sense. Pollan's 'manifesto' is not a diet in the traditional sense (thank goodness - we don't need any more of those). It has reinforced my belief that we don't need to look to scientists to tell us what to eat and that there is so much more to eating a healthy balanced diet than nutrients and calories. Even doing some of what he suggests, some of the time would make an enormous difference to our health. Don't hesitate, buy this book right now!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
great book
I had already known a bit about how food is processed and delivered to our tables but this book has confirmed what I already know - that eating less in general and more food cooked... Read more
Published 20 days ago by B. C. Matheus
One of the best books I have read recently, very informative, eye...
This is a great book full of eye opening, useful information supported by science. Pollan is an excellent writer. Read more
Published 1 month ago by E. Clark
Book never arrived!! :-(
My book never arrived and theres no way i can be sure that it is a fault from the distributors or the mail service, ive had plenty of books posted to me from amazon over the years,... Read more
Published 2 months ago by chloe
In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan
A "must to read" for anyone interested in cooking and eating good, healthy food. This book was recommended to me by an excellent vegan chef and reminds me of simple, flavoursome... Read more
Published 6 months ago by PN-Leeds
Will make you think about what goes into your mouth!
Great book, very interesting. Puts to bed some of the myths about what is actually healthy and what isn't. Has encouraged me to change a few of my foood choices and eating habits.
Published 9 months ago by Katie
Problems with the Western Diet
The author says, "Eat food, not too much and mostly plants" and offers a quick shortcut to healthy eating, suggesting that you shouldn't eat anything that your great grandmother... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Baraniecki Mark Stuart
If you read one book about nutrition, read this!
One of my favourite books about food - it is clear, engaging and also quite short.
The author outlines the problems with the Western diet, and with nutritional research. Read more
The author outlines the problems with the Western diet, and with nutritional research. Read more
Published 16 months ago by MCWBodyProgressCentre
Will change your life
This isn't like other health or diet books because it isn't clinging to any one school of thought regarding nutrition. Read more
Published 16 months ago by sara.kuhlman
Common sense-at last!
This is solid sensible stuff, I can't reccomend it enough.It does seem to me after reading it that I am lucky to eat high quality, fresh food every day. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Marie Tuttle
Very good
A very readable walk through a method of assessing modern food, and how to be on guard for 'food products' merely masquerading as food. Read more
Published 21 months ago by E. McLachlan
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