In Defence of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating - Hardcover

Pollan, Michael

4.07

115,923 ratings by Goodreads

9781846140969: In Defence of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184614096X ISBN 13: 9781846140969

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2008

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defence of Food. 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. 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 bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and our palates and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.

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Review:

'It scourges the misdeeds of US agribusiness, supermarkets and nutrition "experts" with eloquence and erudition. It makes a watertight case for wholesome real food rather than gimmicky diets as the road to health.' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent

`If you're prone to pondering the nutritional advice we're spoon-fed by `experts', this book is a very necessary antidote' -- Timeout

`Reading Michael Pollan tackling this subject in his definitive new book In Defence of Food is like watching a hot knife slice through butter. It instantly makes redundant all diet books and 99 per cent of discussions around healthy eating' -- Daily Mail

`[A] lucid, snappy, and quietly polemical book... Everyone who eats food should read him' -- Scotland on Sunday

`[a] groundbreaking book about the necessity of cherishing and preserving what's left of our food culture' -- Observer

`[a] must-read: loaded with flavour...satisfying, rich stews of savoury detail and meaty chunks of information - nourishment for the mind as well as the body' -- Sunday Telegraph

From the Publisher:

From the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma comes In Defence of Food and the Omnivore's Solution for a new way of eating in the New Year...:

1: Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food

2: Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce

3: Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot

4: Avoid food products that carry health claims

5: Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle

6: Better yet, buy your food somewhere else: farmers' markets or the CSA

7: Pay more, eat less

8: Eat a wide diversity of species

9: Eat food from animals that eat grass

10: Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food

11: Eat meals and eat them only at tables

12: Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure