In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto »

Michael Pollan is a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, a contributing writer for The New York Times, and a bestselling author of witty, offbeat nonfiction that examines various aspects of the agricultural industry, the food chain, and man's place in the natural world.

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 foodlike 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.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, the follow-up to his widely praised The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, should probably come with a warning: After reading this book, you may never shop, cook, or eat the same way again.

Introduction: An Eater's Manifesto 9

I The Age of Nutritionism 29

1 From Foods to Nutrients 31

2 Nutritionism Defined 42

3 Nutritionism Comes to Market 49

4 Food Science's Golden Age 55

5 The Melting of the Lipid Hypothesis 59

6 Eat Right, Get Fatter 73

7 Beyond the Pleasure Principle 77

8 The Proof in the Low-Fat Pudding 84

9 Bad Science 88

10 Nutritionism's Children 112

II The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization 117

1 The Aborigine in All of Us 119

2 The Elephant in the Room 125

3 The Industrialization of Eating: What We Do Know 142

1 From Whole Foods to Refined 148

2 From Complexity to Simplicity 159

3 From Quality to Quantity 164

4 From Leaves to Seeds 172

5 From Food Culture to Food Science 184

III Getting Over Nutritionism 191

1 Escape from the Western Diet 193

2 Eat Food: Food Defined 204

3 Mostly Plants: What to Eat 223

4 Not Too Much: How to Eat 251

Acknowledgments 279

Sources 285

Resources 325