Comments on: Review: In Defense of Food

By: mahesh

mahesh — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:48:56 +0000

Hello,
I am from India and I have been a dedicated follower of your blog from 6 months or more.I beleive your blog has so many followers within US and across globe as well. It would be nice if you could have some of your articles addressing broader audience from asia as well.

By: LS

LS — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:00:14 +0000

For anyone interested, here’s the link to Pollan’s article in the NY Times:

Unhappy Meals
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: January 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html

I have this book on my “to be read” list. After reading your review, I think I’ll move it up a few spots on the list :)

By: J.

J. — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:46:18 +0000

Brilliant, Trent, thank you. I’d also like to join the posters who endorsed Nina Planck wholeheartedly and Sally Fallon with reservations (I agree that her writing is full of polemic & innuendo that undermines otherwise sound arguments).

They all agree that eggs are good for you, that your best bet is to eat around the perimeter of the supermarket (or anything you’d find at a farmer’s market), and that most of us probably need very little in the way of supplements though a multivitamin probably can’t hurt and fish oil seems like a good idea for those of us who don’t live next to a fresh fish market.

rhbee>> one of pollan’s suggestions is that your best line of defense against that stuff is to actually talk to the people you buy food from. the best place to do that is a farmer’s market. can people there lie? yeh–but they have to look you in the eye & do it. nobody at the supermarket even knows where most of the food is coming from, except stuff with origin labels, and then you’re back to trusting a label.

By: Vic

Vic — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:39:16 +0000

Great post, Trent. Thanks for writing such an excellent review of this book.

This is a topic I am just now starting to research for my own family. I consider it one of my jobs as a sahm to keep our food on a strict budget. But every single week, I am faced with the dilemma of “cheap vs. best quality.” I can’t wait to read these two books.

A in NC… excellent comment, and you really got me thinking about ‘easy.’

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:59:03 +0000

Trent,
I recall a post not so long ago where you jumped to the defense of Splenda. That seems a far cry from TOD and IDOF.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:50:18 +0000

This is getting entirely out of control! People, we are walking, talking CHEMICAL FACTORIES! ALL of the food we eat is simply chemicals. Check out the ingredients list from the typical Thanksgiving menu. http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.103/pub_detail.asp

I bet you can’t pronounce all the ingredients in this menu, but they are perfectly good CHEMICALS that our bodies need.

By: A in NC

A in NC — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:49:58 +0000

Trent, thanks for this. Really resonates with me.
It ties in with something I’ve been thinking about for while now, the concept of things being “Easy”.
From a nutritional standpoint, that would be “mainlining glucose” into our systems. We get our fuel and it is Easy. But to get what we need, we need more work. We need more variety, we need to sit down and slow down. We can’t just grab-and-go with the highly processed foods.
Then I applied it to other areas:
Like, reading. Your review of the “how to read a book” ties in. If I am just skimming a book, that is the Easy approach. But if I want something out of it, I need to study it, take notes, look things up. As a result, I get more out of it. I exercise my brain. I bring depth to my thinking. I get all the different elements working together in my mind like all the different nutrients work in my foods when I eat whole foods.
There is more work and effort but I get so much more out of it.
Exercise is another element.
When I do something complex like learn to rock climb or even master roller skating, I’m using my body in connection with my mind. My skills are stretched and honed. Dancing is supposed to help ward off Alzheimer’s. Have you ever taken dance lessons? You feel so awkward and stoopid because it is really challenging. Yet when you get it is so deeply satisfying.
But we keep looking for Easy. Quick.
Jobs that in the past required 3 or 4 years of internship are snubbed. No one wants to be an intern for so long. How demeaning. Yet to learn and hone so many skills necessary in valid work, it requires you learn from a master for a long time. The satisfaction of really learning and knowing a skill is great for self esteem. Good for character building.
Maybe so much of our cultural issues are more to do with not being willing to do things that actually give us genuine pleasure. Because they aren’t EASY.
We all know that the sex that comes after courtship and simply long periods of time where you want it but don’t get it is so much satisfying than a one night stand. But the one night stand is Easy .
Life used to be hard. REALLY hard. Think famine, black plague, etc. Life is not that hard now for most Americans. Yet we are not designed to have “glucose mainlined” into our systems. When we make all the easy choices, we get sick, probably even drepressed. We want challenge, effort, results, and satisfaction. We are designed to work, move, and REALLY use our brains. When we do, we are happier and healthier.
Thanks for your posts. I enjoy them and they get me thinking. So I’m satisfied.

By: rhbee

rhbee — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:28:44 +0000

I work in the Farmer’s Market industry. Quite often, I can see that the food being sold as locally grown is actually been brought from the LA Produce market and reboxed to look local. A person selling asparagus in the off season is quite likely selling produce from Chile or Peru. Much of the time, because there isn’t much of a markup, it just makes sense financially to buy Mexican grown berries and sell them as local, too. I know that this probably isn’t such a problem in parts of the country where small farm ag still is available but here on the coast we seem to have given up all our land to houses. So I guess what I am saying is just because the package says Farmer’s Market doesn’t mean it always is organically grown.

By: valletta

valletta — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:02:53 +0000

My husband and I just sold our restaurant and are so excited to be relocating to the wine country where I’m planning the veggie garden of my dreams. The plan is to grow about 80% of our intake. Let’s just say the seed catalogues are better than shopping for shoes for me:)

My family came from Spain and my husband’s from Italy, Everyone had a garden, even if they had to squeeze it onto a balcony in the Marina!

Good food is a lifestyle. As is good exercise. The more you can integrate that kind of lifestyle (with all the benefits of the internet :) the better off you’ll be.

By: Finally Frugal

Finally Frugal — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:54:24 +0000

Even as an avowed carnivore, I’ve actually been considering more and more how my food choices affect our environment. Primarily because my second job (night) involves web research concerning environmental health.

Just the fact that raising meat contributes so much more to greenhouse gases and climate change (if you believe in that sort of thing—I’m sure there are some who are still skeptics) makes me question whether I really need to purchase meat at all for home cooking.

Added to this, I just watched a horrific video shot by the Humane Society, in which sick cattle are basically tortured into standing up and walking into the slaughterhouse—so the owners can get their money. Aside from the inhumane treatment, this also means that there is some rather questionable beef getting into the grocery store. . . .

Since I’m also trying to live more frugally, something I discovered is TVP (textured vegetable protein), which which I just made my first “meat”loaf. Not bad. Not GREAT, I’ll admit, but definitely edible!

I hope to be able to read some of the books you mention above, Trent, over the next few months, as I further develop a philosophy of food and nutrition that works better for the planet and for my budget!

By: tabletoo

tabletoo — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:43:25 +0000

I agree with a previous poster that you might want to check out Pollan’s article(s) in the New York Times. You might also find Gary Taube’s articles on fat (also in the NYT) to be of interest.

Nina Planck’s ‘Real Food’ is another interesting book. She has an occasional newsletter, and it was in her newslatte that I found out that “In Defense of Food” was being published soon.

Pollan is a good writer and I’ve read all his other books, and recommend them. He’s not exclusively a food writer.

I was lucky enough to be first on my library’s wait list for this book. After reading it, I immediately returned it and went out and bought a copy (at a discount at CostCo).

By: yvie

yvie — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:40:05 +0000

I haven’t read “In Defense of Food” but I have read “The Omnivore’s Dilemna.” It is a book that changed forever the way I look at food. I will never look at a corn field or a piece of meat the same way again.

Excellent recommendation.
Yvie

By: tabletoo

tabletoo — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:35:43 +0000

Here’s what he actually says about vitamins o page 172 of the book. I think I can quote the two paragraphs in the context of a review.

“BE THE KIND OF PERSON WHO TAKES SUPPLEMENTS.

“We know that people who take supplements are generally healthier than the rest of us, and we know that, in controlled studies, most of the supplements they take don’t appear to work Probably the supplement takers are healthier for reasons having nothing to do wuth the pills: They’re typically more health conscious, better educated, and more affluent. So to the extent that you can, be the kind of person who would take supplements, and then save your money.

“That said, many of the nutrition experts I consulted recommended taking a multivitamin, especially as you get older. In theory at least, your diet should provide all the micronutrients you ned to be healthy, especially if you’re eating real food and lots of plants. After all, we evolved to obtain whatever our bodies need from nature and we would not be here if we couldn’t. But natural selection takes litle interest in our health or survival afetr childvearing years are past, and as we age our need for antioxidents increases while our ability to absorb them from food declines. So it’s probably a good idea, and certainly can’t hurt, to take a multivitamin-and-mineral pill after age fifty. And if you don’t eat much fish, it might be wise to take a fish oil supplement as well.”

By: ngthagg

ngthagg — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:32:46 +0000

I’m really surprised at the recommendation to take a supplement. I can’t think of anything that goes against the “eat food” principle more than a supplement pill. Consider:

“avoiding synthetic foods”
“avoiding anything that you can’t pronounce or that you don’t know what it is”
“avoiding any food that makes a health claim on the package”

Supplements are synthetic, unpronounceable, and make numerous health claims. How does this fit in with the rest of the book?

By: Corrie

Corrie — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:03:05 +0000

I have this one on hold at the library — thanks for the great review, now I look forward even more to reading it! Another great book, along similar lines, is Real Food by Nina Planck. It really challenges some of the nutrition/health beliefs that I had (such as “saturated fat leads to heart disease”). You may enjoy it if you like Michael Pollan’s other books!

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:33:45 +0000

Thanks, Trent! I thought that was what you were saying, but I couldn’t quite tell.

By: Fran

Fran — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:39:08 +0000

Thank heaven for a breath of sanity. I will probably get this book next time I go a-Amazoning. No food plan fits the needs of everyone, and I know I did damage to myself and actually contributed to weight gain. I stopped dieting three or four years ago and am now 100 lbs lighter than I was in high school. I’d also recommend French Women Don’t Get Fat for more words on unprocessed food and eating for pleasure.

By: caryn verell

caryn verell — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:21:53 +0000

i am planning to get this book..sounds really interesting. not long ago i decided to just eat meals like my mom and dad served me while growing up…we did not eat out unless you count the occasional picnic, we were dirt poor, we worked harder and had fewer modern conveniences. because there were six of us at the table we were all given serving sizes on smaller plates…if there were alot of leftovers we took them for packed lunches to school/work. dad always got first dibs on second helpings cause he was the breadwinner. if we were lucky enough to have donuts/rolls or special treats no one took their eye off of their own plate (blink and it might disappear). anyways, i am beginning to lose my spare tire around my middle and i can now breathe when i bend over to tie my shoes. i am feeling alot better getting the vit. and minerals my body needs and getting rid of the extra weight my body does not need.

By: caryn verell

caryn verell — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:19:55 +0000

By: PF

PF — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:15:28 +0000

Something doesn’t make sense to me. Where would hunter-gatherers get grains? Grains are cultivated, and if a group is cultivating, they are not hunter-gatherers. Who cares? Well, grains are a relatively recent invention and I’m not sure that they are really all that healthy for us even in their whole form.