Book Review: In Defense of Food
If you eat fast food regularly or frozen dinners more than once in a while then you might benefit from the information in this book, but I really don’t know many people who aren’t at least vaguely familiar with how they should eat. I think that Mr. Pollan gets it right when he says that it is a matter of priority. Spending more money and time on food to have a greater quality of food and a lesser quantity of food is of interest to me and lots of people that I know (because let’s face it we often associate with people who are interested in the same things we are), but not to the general public.
This book has an interesting discussion of the rise and preeminence of nutritionism in America and the deleterious effects of this philosophy. It also contains an amazing resources section with lots of other places to go for more information on eating well all around. I would add the resource of NourishMD for moms as it is a company devoted to encouraging moms to feed their kids real food. The first seven words (and the entire third section of the book) are the recommendations for eating real food. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” I found this book to be a recap of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” with the addition of basic holistic eating info.
I did sort of laugh at Michael Pollan’s suggestion that eating real food is a type of rebellion… Those darn hippies.
Krysta said,
July 28, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
So funny. I was a vegetarian for four years (and am still not much of a meat-eater) and many of my more conservative acquaintances thought I was turning into a “liberal.”
Thanks for that link, too! I’m excited to check that out.
Kristen said,
August 6, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
At Christmas my cousin reminded me that as a christian we are the Temple. I wanted to eat better, but this was the first time it stuck with me.
If we eat right we aren’t hippies, but we should look to people who want to sustain the earth for a better example of how to be good managers of what God has given us.