In defense of “In Defense of Food,” by Michael Pollan

I grew up in (& still live in) an area that has generally lived close to the land. Fly over us in an airplane and we look like a patchwork quilt of cropland. So I pretty much grew up having an idea where some of my food came from.

And after reading Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I had some knowledge about the benefits of sustainable living and community-supported agriculture.

Now Pollan’s book has given me much more to think about. The idea, for instance, that some food is “food” and some food that looks “normal” has been processed beyond anything our great-grandparents would recognize. Another new concept to me is nutritionism, which according to Wikipedia “is an ideology that assumes that it is the scientifically identified nutrients in foods that determine their value in the diet.” Seemingly this idea alone has created a western food culture that has made us not healthier, but fatter. And reading that our diet has shifted from leaf-based to largely nut-based was a radical idea to me. We have basically excluded one set of vital nutrient sources in favor of another, perhaps less beneficial, one, to our apparent detriment.

I would recommend perhaps reading this book instead of listening. Like many informational books, there are a lot of facts to be gleaned, and reading would allow you to take them at your own pace. In addition, there was something about the reader’s voice—the pitch, the inflection, something—that was a bit grating at times.

Will In Defense of Food cause me to completely change my diet? That remains to be seen. I agree with many of the principles Pollan puts forth; a few of them are already near to my heart. But I have ordered this book for my husband, in the hope that maybe we can make a concerted effort to change the way our family eats. Letting go of decades of eating habits won’t be easy, but ya gotta start somewhere …