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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Cathie Beck, Special to the Rocky

Published January 11, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

* Nonfiction. By Michael Pollan. Penguin, $21.95. Grade: B

Book in a nutshell: In Defense of Food suggests a modern, yet very old-fashioned, way of approaching our diets: Eat food, not too much, and mostly plants. Pollan, author of four previous books, including The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire (both New York Times best-sellers), urges readers to turn again toward food - real, well-grown and unprocessed food.

Pollan points out the (seemingly) obvious: Most of what we consume is not food but is more accurately described as "edible food-like substances" created by marketers and food scientists. Furthermore, we are consuming in the most stress-filled, uncomfortable and unhealthy environments ever, i.e., the car, in front of the television, and increasingly alone. It's not really eating, says Pollan, at least not in the sense that civilization has long understood the term.

Pollan asserts that the food industry and nutritional scientists now employ more influence on our food choices than our culture or parents. Real food is quickly disappearing from the marketplace, replaced by "nutrients." And eating for pleasure has been usurped by an obsession with nutrition. The result is a particularly American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we are.

Best tidbit: In a chapter called "From Foods to Nutrients," Pollan speaks to what he sees as America's evolutionary neuroses concerning food and nutrition. "In a supermarket in the 1980s, you might have noticed something peculiar going on," Pollan writes. "Where once familiar names of recognizable comestibles - things like eggs or breakfast cereals . . . claimed pride of place . . . new scientific-sounding terms like 'cholesterol' and 'fiber' and 'saturated fat' began rising to large-type prominence. . . . The implicit message was that foods, by comparison, were coarse, old-fashioned and decidedly unscientific things."

Pros: This work makes solid, supportive arguments in favor of simple food (vs. products often shoved at consumers by marketing machines).

Cons: Even the best discussions can become a bit tiresome 200 pages in.

Final word: Read In Defense of Food to gain specific and intimate knowledge about how the American commercial machine shapes what you put in your mouth (even - and especially- if you don't believe it does).