You will see the importance of why I am writing this post.
In Defense of Food – A Eaters manifesto is a awesome book on how to eat real food, yet in a better way explains that we should just plain out eat period!
“Eye Opening and appetite altering” – Audrey Van Buskirk, Portland Tribune
Michael Pollan has created a book that explains that we should not be afraid to eat, in fact that we should embrace food. And not be afraid of it as if it were some sort of calorie ridden enemy that could sabotage our weight loss goals.
The name of this book justify exactly what it is about!
In Defense of Food Michael Pollan starts out telling us about the history of food.
That food was about the pleasure and the enjoyment, family gatherings and the spiritual benefit. He explains that in the beginning it was not so complicated, people ate and ate for a reason. For a biological necessity and internal pleasure.
The Second part of the book goes into great detail about the rise of nutritionism, and how it came into play. How different nutrients were discovered and studied on how they interrelated with each other.
However with all this rise of nutritionism much more was being created.
The food scientists came into play discovering that they could create and modify ingredients by altering the chemical make up of the food. They purposed that they could take out and add back in what they thought suited the overall process.
Which gave the rise to processed foods.
The whole thing is really quite interesting, especially when he goes into detail about the mind washing of modern America. How big government has been able to convince them to believe that everything they were already eating was not healthy for them.
But something out of box would do the trick.
Go Figure:)
So the rise of the food industrialization and a turning point in which America would than plummet to the lows of obesity, heart disease, cancers, in-fertility, with a huge role of spectrum disorders in children to name a few.
Yes, everything we eat correlates to how we feel.
Michael Pollan wraps it up in the end by letting us know how we can get back to real food, by following simple steps. He shows us what to do, what we need to avoid and really its pretty simple!
This book as in my opinion is one the most informative books out there to date on how we should govern our thoughts about how we view food. It was a delight to read.
And I am sure you will enjoy it too.
As his mantra goes – Eat Food not much, Mostly Plants.
Here is a brief overview of what the book covers:
The age of Nutritionsim –
• From foods to nutrients
• Nutritionism define
• Nutritionism comes to market
• Food science golden age
• The melting of the liquid hypothesis
• Eat right, get fatter
• Beyond the pleasure principle
• The proof in the low fat pudding
• Bad science
• Nutritionism’s children
The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization
• The aborigine in all of us
• The elephant in the room
The Industrialization of Eating – What We do know.
1. From whole foods to refined
2. From complexity to simplicity
3. From quality to quantity
4. From leaves to seeds
5. From food to culture to food science
Getting over nutritionism
• Escape form the western diet
• Eat food: food defend
• Mostly plants: what to Eat
• Not too much: How to Eat
“A mantra worth a thousand words: ‘Not too much. Mostly plants’ A welcome dispensation for omnivores.” –O , – the Oprah Magazine