ewee (08/26): In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

One more Michael Pollan book, and I'll admit I'm a groupie (and, yes, I've got my eye on The Botany of Desire next...). In the meantime, this was a good, albeit, lightweight follow-up to The Omnivore's Dilemma.

In Defense of Food offers a prescription (of sorts) for the dilemma presented in his previous book. It's a good fast read, tightly woven enough to keep you engrossed, and detailed enough to own, rather than borrow from a library (tho that does remind me, I need to get my copy of Omnivore back...)

As always, Pollan makes excellent observations and astonishing connections (from my notes--p.118: Industrial agriculture has made tremendous strides in getting more calories from the land, so why is there still hunger? and--p.166: Livestock creates more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation industry worldwide...). And in this book, he takes pity on us, the overwhelmed reader, and loosely constructs an outline of what it is we can eat. (The oft quoted intro: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.")

A couple tidbits to whet your appetite (so to speak):

"Culture, which, at least when it comes to food, is really just a fancy word for your mother."

"...historically, people have eaten for a great many reasons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family, and spirituality...eating is as much about culture as it has been about biology."

"...[it's] worth keeping in mind...[that a] far more powerful predictor of heart disease than either diet or exercise is social class."

"Don't eat anything incapable of rotting."

"Don't eat anything that your great grandma wouldn't recognize."

"...a glass of wine a day is better for your health..." [ok, I admit that last one is taken out of context, but only slightly.]

No time to read the whole book? Try his article Unhappy Meals from the NYT (this article is the seed from which the book was born...).

In a full-circle-cool-web kinda way, this book takes me back to my original thanks to mahna mahna--it's because of him that I read Unhappy Meals, which lead me to discovering Omnivore, which lead to In Defense and perhaps onward to Botany...

And in a pass-it-forward kinda way, buy the book from your local friendly bookseller. Bookshops have it tough these days, and if you have one in your hood, give it plenty o' love.

(Stepping offa soapbox now...)