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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
slow-paced
I listened to the audiobook and it was a great reminder that I need to pay more attention to what kinds of foods, and the quality of foods, that I am putting into my body. It was also a great starting point to talk to my children about the processed foods they would prefer to eat vs. whole foods. If you need some motivation to change your eating habits or to plant a garden this is a good choice!
I really enjoyed an "Omnivore's Dilemma", but I wasn't sure I needed or wanted to read a book "in defense of food". Good thing I did, though. I thought I knew about as much as I needed to about what constitutes a healthy diet, but this book really made me reconsider some of my long-held notions, such as eating "fat-free" and low-cholesterol foods. This book offers a frightening and well-researched indictment of the Western Diet as well as a lot of practical information for avoiding the worst of it. His arguments are extremely convincing and make a lot of sense.
Super interesting book about nutrition. Could have been a 5 star if anti-science language wasn’t so off-putting to me.
Actually, I listed to this on CD. Mr. Pollan clearly details the problems inherent in the average American diet, the reasons the diet is what it is, and offers suggestions for improvement. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time analyzing her eating habits and is working to improve them, this book is a good motivator.
Just like "Fast Food Nation" and "Super Size Me," this book talks about food as FOOD -- not nutrients and not processed. Pollan says to eat food our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would recognize. He stresses that human diets should be mostly plants with meat as a side dish.
I highly recommend this name, despite the misgivings I have with it (alas, the limits of the five-star rating system).
I had never read Pollan's works before, because of the time I saw him speak in Oberlin many years back. He came across as snobby and glib regarding food and public policy. I was left with a sour taste in my mouth. My reaction was not as bad as that of my Iowan friend, who left feeling like his entire state was being mocked by some west-coast elitist as a bunch of mindless monoculture-obsessed hicks. His apoplectic rage was quite memorable.
Anyway, this book spends its first two thirds deftly critiquing the methods, results, and foolhardy prescriptivism of nutritionist research. Then, it goes off into expounding a philosophy of how to eat well, where things get shaky. Pollan's prescription for eating well is all fine and good, if you are a high-minded well-to-do person with the luxury of leisure time. And he has a glib, self-congratulatory approach to changing the world: if enough high-minded well-to-do liberals make the same personal food choices as he (which he likens to voting) then major changes to American society and the food system will inevitably result. Yeah right.
Not addressed: how the 7 billion people on Earth are going to feed themselves when we eliminate synthetic fertilizers and turn back the clock on agriculture. Pollan doesn't seem to concern himself with the difficult and complex problems of food policy; he is content expounding a food ethic from his liberal ivory tower without making any effort to deal with reality.
Not that the personal choices he recommends are bad ones. I would like to follow some of his recommendations. And I can, because I'm a high-minded well-to-do liberal with time on my hands.
I had never read Pollan's works before, because of the time I saw him speak in Oberlin many years back. He came across as snobby and glib regarding food and public policy. I was left with a sour taste in my mouth. My reaction was not as bad as that of my Iowan friend, who left feeling like his entire state was being mocked by some west-coast elitist as a bunch of mindless monoculture-obsessed hicks. His apoplectic rage was quite memorable.
Anyway, this book spends its first two thirds deftly critiquing the methods, results, and foolhardy prescriptivism of nutritionist research. Then, it goes off into expounding a philosophy of how to eat well, where things get shaky. Pollan's prescription for eating well is all fine and good, if you are a high-minded well-to-do person with the luxury of leisure time. And he has a glib, self-congratulatory approach to changing the world: if enough high-minded well-to-do liberals make the same personal food choices as he (which he likens to voting) then major changes to American society and the food system will inevitably result. Yeah right.
Not addressed: how the 7 billion people on Earth are going to feed themselves when we eliminate synthetic fertilizers and turn back the clock on agriculture. Pollan doesn't seem to concern himself with the difficult and complex problems of food policy; he is content expounding a food ethic from his liberal ivory tower without making any effort to deal with reality.
Not that the personal choices he recommends are bad ones. I would like to follow some of his recommendations. And I can, because I'm a high-minded well-to-do liberal with time on my hands.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
This book was pivotal to my understanding of the food industry in America. It has inspired and educated me on how to change my eating habits. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know the reality about the food that they eat, everything from why we focus so much on certain aspects of food to how government policies that make our health current situation in the USA possible.