Goodread Review: In Defense of Food

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Phoebe 107No Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F2009%2F08%2F11%2Fgoodread-review-in-defense-of-food%2FGoodread+Review%3A+In+Defense+of+Food2009-08-11+15%3A27%3A00Phoebehttp%3A%2F%2Fphoebeeating.dreamhosters.com%2F%3Fp%3D107

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was looking forward to reading Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, since his plain-spoken eating philosophy (in the unlikely event that you haven’t heard it, it’s “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.”) is pretty close to my own. The first half of the book, which presented background information on our cultural eating habits, lived up to my expectations. Well-written and likewise well-researched, Pollan’s exploration into the Western diet should be sufficiently convincing to anyone who has thought critically about their eating habits.

The second section, in which Pollan sets down his “eater’s manifesto,” was surprisingly thin, though. Pollan implies several times that he prefers a vegetarian diet, but he never quite argues this sufficiently. Likewise, his admonishments to “eat food . . . not too much” seem somewhat divorced from our dieter’s culture and the strange, strained relationship that advertising and the media has with food. Having read the similarly themed, but meatier (hah!) The Obesity Myth several years ago, I couldn’t help but wish for a deeper exploration or at least acknowledgment of sociological factors that make eating food, and not too much of it, difficult for many people. Pollan simply says that it’s a “shame” that not everyone can afford or has access to pasture-fed beef and copious veggies; the reality is much worse than that, though it may be difficult for Pollan, unarguably a member of the upper-class intellectual elite, to see past his own cultural blinders to acknowledge it.

I think the biggest problem here is that Pollan can only be preaching to the choir: those who are similarly privileged (and I can’t deny that I am) will nod knowingly at his references to his CSA box; but those who could actually reap the most benefits from the changes he suggests will likely never encounter this book, and if they do, implementing the advice inside is likely to be, at best, impractical, and at worst impossible.

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