Alli's CBR-III Review #8 - In Defense of Food

I have never really read a lot of non-fiction books, but I have to say I am becoming quite fond of them. They are not as much fun to read necessarily, but I do enjoy learning and so I think I shall continue on this path. I went to the library last night and found that I had 5 books in that I had requested (one that I had requested only 20 mins before I left to go to the library).


The latest non-fiction that I read was “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan is about nutrition science, government food policy and ends with suggestions on how one should eat. The manifesto is simple “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”. It may have been a bit too simple, as the majority of the book focuses on the science, and the failures and misinformation of the past, and not enough on hope for the future. I suppose that people do need to be frightened into change, I am about halfway where I want to be as far as clean and healthy eating so it was a bit of preaching to the choir for me.

I am not going to say that I never eat crap, because that would be a total lie, but I am well aware that I should not be eating those things, and of how bad they are for me. I am making a large effort to eat less processed foods and more fresh foods. Being a vegetarian also helps a lot to avoid certain unwanted chemicals and hormones in my diet.

I did find it interesting how unreliable nutrition science is, as well as how food lobbyists can manipulate the FDA into making claims about their products. Frito-Lay is getting a claim encouraging people to eat chips because the fat they are fried in can be interpreted as good for you. Before fat was vilified as causing multiple heart problems, but people simply replaced the fat with sugar and we are worse off than ever.

Although some parts are a bit dry to read, I would recommend reading this to anyone who is concerned about the current state of food in this world that we live in. We all really do need to take the focus away from quantity and back onto quality. We need to learn to appreciate the food that is on our plates, to savour it and get back to having mealtimes be a time for social activity. This is something I would also need to work on, with a busy schedule I tend to think of mealtimes and the preparation of those meals as something to get through as fast as I can. I need to put the joy back into cooking the meals, and sharing them with my family as well.