sign in| help
Search advanced search
 
Books
Search:
x dismiss this message

Did you know you can edit this page?

In Defense of Food
  • Rated 0 stars
Read In Defense of Food

In Defense of Food (2008) (edit title/settings)

An Eater's Manifesto

by Michael Pollan (Author) (edit contributors)

Share this book on:
see page history

Description edit see section history

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... read more

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

  • - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
  • - In Defense Of Food - Zombies. I'm editing this so I can export my list of books I've read

Summary edit see section history

Somewhere along the line we stopped eating food and started feeding on "edible food-like substances" created not by nature, but by food scientists. We stopped eating socially and started feeding in the car, at our desks, and in front of the television. In the Western diet, food has been... read more

Somewhere along the line we stopped eating food and started feeding on "edible food-like substances" created not by nature, but by food scientists. We stopped eating socially and started feeding in the car, at our desks, and in front of the television. In the Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by fear and confusion. In Defense of Food gets back to the basics - a common sense approach to eating that will drastically improve your long-term health.

Popular Covers

Loading covers…

Choose your book’s cover

Quotes edit see section history

  • “Be the kind of person who would take supplements, and then save your money.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “Most of the nutritional advice we've received over the last half century (and in particular the advice to replace the fats in our diets with carbohydrates) has actually made us less healthy and considerably fatter.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “The scientists haven't tested the hypothesis yet, but I'm willing to bet that when they do they'll find an inverse correlation between the amount of time people spend worrying about nutrition and their overall health and happiness.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.”
  • “Nutritionism had become the official ideology of the Food and Drug Administration; for all practical purposes the government had redefined food as nothing more than the sum of their recognized nutrients. Adulteration had been repositioned as food science.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “Yet as a general rule it's a whole lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a raw potato or a carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over in Cereal the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming their newfound "whole-grain goodness" to the rafters.”
    Michael Pollan
  • “What the Soviet Union was to the ideology of Marxism, the Low-Fat Campaign is to the ideology of nutritionism - its supreme test and, as now is coming clear, its most abject failure.”
    Michael Pollan
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • AVOID FOOD PRODUCTS CONTAINING INGREDIENTS THAT ARE A) UNFAMILIAR, B) UNPRONOUNCEABLE, C) MORE THAN FIVE IN NUMBER, OR THAT INCLUDE D) HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.
    Highlighted by 637 Kindle customers
  • AVOID FOOD PRODUCTS THAT MAKE HEALTH CLAIMS.
    Highlighted by 523 Kindle customers
  • SHOP THE PERIPHERIES OF THE SUPERMARKET AND STAY OUT OF THE MIDDLE.
    Highlighted by 500 Kindle customers
  • GET OUT OF THE SUPERMARKET WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
    Highlighted by 473 Kindle customers
  • DON’T EAT ANYTHING YOUR GREAT GRANDMOTHER WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE AS FOOD.
    Highlighted by 455 Kindle customers
  • YOU ARE WHAT WHAT YOU EAT EATS TOO.
    Highlighted by 454 Kindle customers
  • EAT MOSTLY PLANTS, ESPECIALLY LEAVES.
    Highlighted by 448 Kindle customers
  • BE THE KIND OF PERSON WHO TAKES SUPPLEMENTS.
    Highlighted by 400 Kindle customers
  • EAT WELL-GROWN FOOD FROM HEALTHY SOILS.
    Highlighted by 397 Kindle customers
  • COOK AND, IF YOU CAN, PLANT A GARDEN.
    Highlighted by 370 Kindle customers
Show all 19 quotes from this book

Organizations edit see section history

  • Archer Daniels Midland Company: ADM is a food conglomerate based in Decatur, Illinois.
  • EPA: The United States Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the United States federal government, charged with protecting human health and the environment.
  • FDA: The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation of food, tobacco, prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, cosmetics and more.
  • Slow Food: Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. To do that, Slow Food brings together pleasure and responsibility, and makes them inseparable.

First Sentence edit see section history

If you spent any time at all in a supermarket in the 1980s, you might have noticed something peculiar going on.

Table of Contents edit see section history

I. The Age of Nutritionism
1. From Foods to Nutrients
2. Nutritionism Defined
3. Nutritionism Comes to Market
4. Food Science's Golden Age
5. The Melting of the Lipid Hypothesis
6. Eat Right, Get Fatter
7. Beyond the Pleasure Principle
8. The Proof in the Low-Fat Pudding
9. Bad Science
10. Nutritionism's Children

II. The Western Diet and the Disease of Civilization
1. The Aborigine in All of Us
2. The Elephant in the Room
3. The Industrialization of Eating:
- What We Do Know:
1. From Whole Foods to Refined
2. From Complexity to Simplicity
3. From Quality to Quantity
4. From Leaves to Seeds
5. From Food Culture to Food Science

III. Getting Over Nutritionism
1. Escape from the Western Diet
2. Eat Food: Food Defined
3. Mostly Plants: What to Eat
4. Not Too Much: How to Eat

Acknowledgements
Sources
Resources
Index

Glossary edit see section history

  • CSA: In a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture), farmers offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.
  • Biodiversity: Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem. Biodiversity is often used to gauge the health of a system.
  • Carotenoids: Carotenoids are the naturally-occurring organic pigments found in photosynthetic organisms.
  • Diverticulitis: Diverticulitis is a relatively common digestive disease of the large intestine.
  • Macronutrients: The nutrients that humans need to consume in large quantities: carbohydrates, fats, proteins.
  • Micronutrients: Micronutrients are nutrients for which humans only need to consume a small quantity in order to sustain life.
  • Nutritionism: Nutritionism is a school of thought that assumes that the value of a food is equal to the sum of its scientifically-identified nutrients.
  • Western diet: Describe this term.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Eating Well. (community list)

Followed by The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Michael Pollan (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Ann Godoff (Editor)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Penguin Press
Country: USA
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
ISBN: 1594201455
Page Count: 256

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: RA784 .P643 2009
  • Dewey: 613

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Omnivore's Dilemma
  • The Botany of Desire
  • Food Rules
  • Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • The Omnivore's Dilemma

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history

   
  • Food Rules

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history

   
  • The Jungle
  • Livestock's Long Shadow
  • Mindless Eating
  • Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
  • The Omnivore's Dilemma
  • Perfection Salad
  • The Queen of Fats
  • Revolution at the Table
  • The China Study

We’re hiding the errata, movie connections, books that influenced this book and books influenced by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.

This book has no spoilers.

© 2006-2012 Shelfari | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy

Close