In Defense of Food

An Eater's Manifesto

By: Michael Pollan

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of This is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Food Rules

Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion—most of what we’re consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become. With In Defense of Food, Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

©2008 Michael Pollan (P)2008 Penguin Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Michael Pollan [is the] designated repository for the nation's food conscience."—Frank Bruni, The New York Times

"In this slim, remarkable volume, Pollan builds a convincing case not only against that steak dinner but against the entire Western diet."—The Washington Post

"A tough, witty, cogent rebuttal to the proposition that food can be reduced to its nutritional components without the loss of something essential . . . [a] lively, invaluable book."—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

surprisingly eye-opening

I was amazed by how much I don't think about when preparing my meals, and this book provides very convincing arguments for the amazingly simple suggestions it makes about how to eat healthy.

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants!

Great information not so great delivery

I wish Michael Pollan had read this book instead of Scott Brick. A little too much drama and inflection for my taste. Happy that Mr. Pollan read Caffeine.

Michael Pollan's books are always a good read

Scott Brick has a great voice for books like Dune, but I had a very hard time listening to the intensity of his voice for a book about food. I much prefer when Michael Pollan narrates his own books.

Must Read!

Great eye opener to the food industry in America and how we’ve got to start making some changes for our future and our children’s future. Loved this book!

Some good takeaways

This book surprised me in terms of the number of good rules-of-thumbs proposed for healthier eating. Lucid and honest style. Worth reading if you want to understand how to be a better eater.

Great read

Great read, not too long, very insightful and aplicable to daily life. As always, Michael Pollan manages to explain a very complex and intricate topic in a way anyone can understand.

an important book on the most important and underated part of modern life

Pollan writes pedagogically and beautifully, shame that it's not narrated by him but this narrator manages to capture the books essence and it's humourous tones when called for

Enlightening

The analysis of nutritionism and its problems was eye opening. A new/old way to think about food.

Prepare to change your habits

The best books affect you, make you think and sometimes they even make you change your day to day habits. This is one of those books, a short read of ground shifting potential. And like all great books I’ve read, it starts with a simple premise and a simple question: Western culture is, by and large, health obsessed and has been for a while. We count calories, we examine fat content, we examine with finite prevision the nutritional makeup of our foods. So why, in a culture of nutritional obsession are we getting sicker and sicker every year?

What the author poses as an answer is, to use his words, that we have removed culture from our eating habits (culture being a word that means your mother). So he examines the food industry for all its faults and suggests an alternative: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. It’s strange that someone would need to spend a whole book defending food but most of what we eat is not, strictly speaking, food. You should read this book, it has made an impact in my life. So go on, get cooking.

A manifesto for the foodie

If you had to choose between celery and hot dogs for the rest of your life, which would be the "healthy" choice? The answer may surprise you...
Pollan sets out to establish a guideline for what people should eat, and he's quite successful. This isn't and anti-dieting book, but it's not a guide to "nutrition" either; instead, the book sets out cases and examples that willl make you think twice about the assumptions you have about food (and "food products"), and hopefully will help you figure out how to eat more food and less garbage.