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More copies of this ISBN:In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifestoby Michael Pollan
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"Pollan's critique of the American food industry and the plague of obesity, diabetes, coronary disease, cancer, and untimely death for which it is largely responsible is comparable to the work of Rachel Carson as a contribution to the history of human self-destruction, for the food fabricators could not have done their work without our complicity any more than the environmental polluters could have done theirs." Jason Epstein, The New York Review of Books (read the entire New York Review of Books review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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 food-like 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. Review:"In his hugely influential treatise The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan traced a direct line between the industrialization of our food supply and the degradation of the environment. His new book takes up where the previous work left off. Examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of health, this powerfully argued, thoroughly researched and elegant manifesto cuts straight to the chase with a maxim that is deceptively simple: 'Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.' But as Pollan explains, 'food' in a country that is driven by 'a thirty-two billion-dollar marketing machine' is both a loaded term and, in its purest sense, a holy grail. The first section of his three-part essay refutes the authority of the diet bullies, pointing up the confluence of interests among manufacturers of processed foods, marketers and nutritional scientists — a cabal whose nutritional advice has given rise to 'a notably unhealthy preoccupation with nutrition and diet and the idea of eating healthily.' The second portion vivisects the Western diet, questioning, among other sacred cows, the idea that dietary fat leads to chronic illness. A writer of great subtlety, Pollan doesn't preach to the choir; in fact, rarely does he preach at all, preferring to lets the facts speak for themselves." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"In his 2006 blockbuster, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma,' Michael Pollan gave voice to Americans' deep anxiety about food: What should we eat? Where does our food come from? And, most important, why does it take an investigative journalist to answer what should be a relatively simple question? In the hundreds of interviews Pollan gave following the book's publication, the question everyone,... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Review:"[A] tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential....[L]ively, invaluable." Janet Maslin, the New York Times Review:"Pollan's accessible, meticulously researched book will be essential reading for anyone who takes food seriously." Boston Globe Review:"[Pollan] uses his familiar brand of carefully researched, common-sense journalism...providing guidelines and convincing arguments." Los Angeles Times Synopsis:From the author of the bestselling The Omnivores Dilemma comes this bracing and eloquent manifesto that shows readers how they might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich their lives and enlarge their sense of what it means to be healthy. About the AuthorMichael Pollan is the author of three previous books, including The Botany of Desire, a New York Times bestseller. A longtime contributor to The New York Times, he is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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