Book Review: In Defense of Food
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 5:59
quickly becoming one of the most successful food writers in the US, Michael Pollen has been able to change the way many view food.
His first book, Omnivore’s Delimma was a New York Times best seller, and on a personal level it was one of those books that provided the first real opportunity for the larger public to open up a new dialogue on food.
It was a book unlike Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, or Fast Food Nation, in that it took an approach that simply presented the food chain as it was and then let the reader decide.
Of course, his message that we need to overhaul our food chain was omnipresent, but it was a message carried by the descriptions of how organically raised food is just better tasting, more healthy, and more sustainable.
Following the success of that book, his latest In Defense of Food, takes it to another step by really personalizing the fact that we as consumers have a choice in what we buy, but that the average person does not actually understand the fundamentals of food anymore. that we have been bombarded by advertisements for so long, we actually believe that it is possible to have a box of no-fat, no-carb, no protein items that are good for us… regardless of the number of chemicals it takes to create the Franken-cookie.
While I will admit to enjoying a sleeve of penut butter oreos on occasion, I have always had a higtened awareness of food and the fact that some foods were better than others. Perhaps it is a result of the fact that I was alergic to nearly everything edible when I was a kid, or the fact that I was put on a largely organic diet for 4 years, or the fact that once I was on that diet my alergies and ailments largely disappeared… but I have always been conscience of the fact that food that comes in a box is bad for me.
A point Pollen really drives home in this book. Successfully.
the other major point that Pollen’s book drove home for me was just the simple fact that we eat too much, and have grown used to eating too often.. and that it is largely in our heads:
In one study Wansink rigged up bowls of soup in a restaurant so they would automatically refull from the bottom: those given the bottomless bowl ate 73 percent more than the subjects eating from an ordinary bowl
Coming part from our culture of eating food around a table of friends or family, to the all we can eat gorge in 15 minutes eating has become in my lifetime, this book rightly looks ate how our culture has changed to also precipitate the issues of poor diet and health.
This is a book tha tI would suggest everyone read, particularly new parents as there are a lot of lessons that are relevant to how we need to begin understanding what is food, what is enough, and where it comes from.
