In Defense of Food

In his latest manifesto, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan makes the claim for eating real food. The first half of the book is a viable and just argument against eating food based on health claims. As Pollan astutely points out, fruits and vegetables rarely come with packaging professing their innumerable benefits, yet it is these foods in their simple, unprocessed state that have fed and nourished generations of healthy individuals. Unfortunately as Pollan pleads against the reductive nutritionist argument (nutritional information found on packaging) he does so in the very manner he is advising against: using numbers and statistics that are anything but unprocessed. While his points of contention are clear, they are certainly not concise. As the book progresses it begins to read more and more like someone's biology thesis than an enthralling work of non-fiction. (Yes, I did find myself skimming large sections of the book: Come on, get on with it already).

The second part of the book comes as a welcome relief from the statistical crunching of the first half. It offers Pollan's opinionated justification and how-to for eating real food, and does so in a manner much more accessible than his own reductive arguments of the first half.

The book can be summed up by Pollan's own words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It is a valid and worthy premise; unfortunately Pollan proffers up way too much processed, nutrient-by-nutrient information for his book to stand up to his own standard of eating.

Recommendation: Read the cover and dust jacket and then move on to something more worthwhile.