Book review: In Defense of Food

The first August book-of-the-week was In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. I had a certain visceral, anti-elitist reaction to it, but overall a good book worth reading. 

Or, you could just read the 7 word manifesto prominently printed on the cover and call it a day: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Still here? Then let's do quotes.

"If you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a strong indication that it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat." As he points out later on, for something to have a claim it has to have a package, and packaged food is generally less good for you. I do appreciate that he breaks down why industrialized, packaged food is not healthy - I've heard all my life that processed food is bad, but never really understood why. It seemed like a lot of bougie nonsense, just another excuse to sell me overpriced vegetables and and ridiculous health smoothies. 

But I understand a little bit better now, and can see how processed food is food made easy - and like so many things in life, easier is not always good. In fact, slower and harder is often better for us in the long run than faster and easier: meaningful work is better than endless leisure, exercise is better than bingeing Netflix, learning to fail is better than always succeeding.

"...Culture, which at least when it comes to food, is really just a fancy word for your mother." Parts of this approach I agree with: knowing what to eat and how to eat it (as passed down from mother to child) is how we survived, not a fad. Don't give up on the traditional ways/foodstuffs of eating in order to stay on trend. On the other hand, when he advocates for eating "like your great grandmother," I have to question. Do you know what my Southern forbearers were eating? Because it sure wasn't vegetables - it was bread and meat soaked in lard. 

"But who knows what else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?" I love this line. It's a good summation of his point that food is more than the sum of its parts, and we don't really know what nutrients or configuration thereof makes us go. So just eat foods, as straight from the dirt as you can get them (or at least, combined with other foods that are also straight from the dirt). 

And finally, the favorite quote of my memento-mori soul: "Don't eat anything incapable of rotting." 

xo, 
Devo