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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
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List Price: $21.95
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Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9781594201455
ISBN: 1594201455
Label: Penguin Press HC, The
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The
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Editorial Reviews:
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What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma.
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. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. 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 sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food."
Writing In Defense of Food, and affirming the joy of eating, Pollan suggests that if we would pay more for better, well-grown food, but buy less of it, we'll benefit ourselves, our communities, and the environment at large. Taking a clear-eyed look at what science does and does not know about the links between diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about the question of what to eat that is informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach.
In Defense of Food reminds us that, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, the solutions to the current omnivore's dilemma can be found all around us.
In looking toward traditional diets the world over, as well as the foods our families-and regions-historically enjoyed, we can recover a more balanced, reasonable, and pleasurable approach to food. Michael Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives and enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Vegetable Romance
Comment: Michael Pollan's sage advice, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants," is now what I tell my patients who ask me about losing weight. Its embarrassing that most medical schools offer less than a day of education to nutrition when patients are constantly concerned with their food habits-- and for good reason. Pollan has put together the ultimate book on eating in America. This is what your doctor should be telling you.
His sagely and researched approach to the American national food disorder should be mandatory for all of us-- the chronic dieters, the fast food lovers, and those of us wondering which fats are the good ones these days.
The icing on the refined-sugars cake is that Michael Pollan, while educating, is also absolutely fascinating.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Must read if you need to eat to survive
Comment: I saw this book featured on Nightline, and I was intrigued by some of the talking points such as only shopping on the outside of the grocery store. As an endurance athlete, I know I need to be more cerebral about what food I am putting into my body, so I thought this book would help. I also approached this book with some reservations, as I consider my political leanings conservative, and I am not a vegetarian. Instead of getting a lot of left-wing meat-eater-hating nonsense, this book quite nicely lays out the problems of consuming processed food. After reading it, I personally have considered not just what foods I consume, but how I go about purchasing it, preparing it, and savoring it, as well. The discussion concerning the necessity of a balanced diet (i.e., not cutting carbs or fat out of your diet) is enlightening. This book debunks everything modern food companies market as healthy and nutritious- example- truly healthy food doesn't have an advertising budget, avoid foods that claim to be healthy! Overall, this book was very enlightening. If you care about the health of your family or yourself, you need to read this book. There's no hidden agenda here, other than educating a very misled American public about what healthy eating really means.
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Summary: Leaves out the most damning facts about processed food
Comment: It's a pretty good book, but doesn't hit hard enough. If it really told the whole story, most readers would really take a step back and reevaluate whether or not supermarket food is okay to eat. He points out that 1982 marked a turning point in the US. Before that, most supermarket food would be considered food. After 1982, food became loaded with adulterants, and really can not be called food. If most food on the shelves toady were subject to the "imitation food" labeling law that was repealed in 1973, most everything today would be labeled "imitation". Certainly anything sold by General Mills, Kraft, Nestle, and the other big processors would be labeled imitation. They do not have any products that could ahve avoided the imitation label. That is why the law was repealed, so that they could start adulerating food, e.g. removing the nutrients, selling them off separately for profit, then adding in synthetic nutrients, which are very cheap to manufacture. Nearly all supermarket food is now imitation. He does point out, that most of our food is made from corn, soy. But he fails to point out that all artificial colors, and most artifical flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives are made from by-prodcuts of petroleum refineries. Here is how artificial colors are made (this applies to all colors with the prefix FD&C: Benzene (a very toxic solvent)is the by-product of refining crude oil into other products such as diesel and gasoline. Sulfuric acid and Nitric acid is added to the benzene to form nitrobenzene. This is then turned into aniline. Aniline is extremely toxic, and is the building block for all artificial colors. And this is not the worst thing that is put in food. I really wish he would have discussed this issue. He does say that 2/3 of all calories in the US come from 4 plants: wheat, corn, soy, and rice. This should really concern us, as at no other time in history have human eaten so much grain and soybeans, and the fact that it is so highly processed makes it that much worse.
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Summary: A watered down version of The Omnivore's Dilemma
Comment: This is a watered down version of Omnivore's Dilemma with the same message (eat locally, eat more plants, etc.). The message is good, and the argument is solid, but this slim volume is not nearly the great achievement that The Omnivore's Dilemma was.
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Summary: In Defense of "In Defense of Food"
Comment: I loved this book!
It takes a different perspective from Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemna". Here, Pollan is principally concerned about eating from a perspective of personal health/nutrition. Fortunately, the conclusion that he comes to is that someone who is thoughtful about their eating will make many of the same decisions whether their starting point is ecology, environment, personal health (and I'd add to the list labor rights and animal rights, much of the time). Yes, between all these different viewpoints, there are A FEW places where advocates might disagree, but it seems that a thoughtful eater will benefit all of these areas in general.
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