This was an amazing book and unfortunately it has cemented my rather low opinion of large corporations and how they operate. Like putting the positive spin on the fact that industrial farmed vegetables have less nutrition than 50 years - people would have to eat more of them to get the same amount of nutrition - a definite win for those selling them. Very eye opening for me and I highly recommend others to read it too.

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I found myself nodding in agreement through much of the book, but when he gets to the advice, eh. I mean I agree that we should eat more whole foods slower and in the company of family and friends, that we should cook more, etc., but the advice seemed to be really only for a specific demographic. Many people don't have the time, energy, or monetary resources to eat the way he suggests. We need a whole overhaul of American society before Pollan's recommendations can be implemented universally. Overall a good read though. ( )

Strangely, books like this need to be written. Yet, at one level, it is not strange at all. Our eating habits have changed. As young children, we did not have processed food on the table or in shops. We envied people living in the West and craved the packaged food they could buy without thought.

Our eating habits in Asia are changing and are affecting our health. Diabetes, for instance, is rising in my part of the world.

Then, along comes a book like this, telling us that our original path was correct all along! The book is timely, and his advice is sage

The book is non-technical, and I suggest we all follow the advice in the book. ( )

I started off thinking I was going to really like this book, but it didn't end up to be the case. It really didn't hold a candle to [b:The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals|3109|The Omnivore's Dilemma A Natural History of Four Meals|Michael Pollan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1393804353s/3109.jpg|3287769]. I felt that The Omnivore's Dilemma really made a strong case for eating local, organic, farm raised produce, and it made that case with diligent thorough research into industrial food production. So I learned a lot from that book and felt it was well argued.

By contrast, In Defense of Food focuses on why we don't know much about nutrition and the weakness of science in unearthing what we should eat. The writing is engaging, and I enjoyed reading about Pollen's insights, but the whole thing isn't very enlightening. In the end, the author draws conclusions about what we should and should not eat, and gives simple eating guidelines that really are the same ones you'd find in any woman's magazine article on eating right. Yes, the build up of his argument is more thorough and slightly more interesting, but the whole book just reads like an overblown magazine article - - and I could really give you the whole book in 5-10 sentences right here. But I won't. In case you still want to read it . . . ( )

This could be called The Omnivore's Dilemma Part 2. In this volume, Pollan elaborates on his conclusions on the best diet: eat real food, not a lot, mainly plants. I can live with that. His critique of nutritionism makes a number of valid points, but I was a bit perturbed at his using of nutritional studies to argue against nutrition. Still, food for thought. ( )