Wednesday, May 21, 2008

4. In Defense of Food



Okay, I haven't finished this one yet, but I had to jot down a couple of notes, because I love it so much. This book is an expanded article that Pollan wrote for the NYT review last year. I remember reading that article and being captivated. The advice begins simple and gets just a bit more involved and developed.


Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.


The premise behind the book is that American cuisine has become hijacked by Nutritionists who have clumbsily broken down food into its nutritional components: protein, carbs, fat, and taken all pleasure and real health out of eating. So when you see a loaf of bread the thing you see is "Low-Carb" or "Low-fat" or you look at the Nutritional breakdown. The nutritionists break down food into the "essentials" and then have this strange manichean view, where protein is "good" and fat is "bad". Eventhough we require fat to survive. Pollan gives an example where a group of people are asked what is healthier a diet with no fat or a diet with just a pinch of fat, and a third respond that the no fat diet is healthier.

More to come...

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