This book, a condensation of wisdom and myth-busting on how and what we eat from wise myth-buster on that same topic Michael Pollan, was an easy, interesting and enjoyable read. Several others of his books are on my extensive 'to-read list', and I came across this small volume at a friend's house, coincidentally found a second-hand copy very cheaply the next day, and breezed through it in a spare ninety minutes this morning.
Please note, I am not concentrating very hard on doing a great post here, as I am running for one of the elected positions in our Students' Union, and voting closes tomorrow, so while I can spare a few minutes to read and write, I do so with laconic urgency before rushing back to brief my campaign team about tomorrow's endeavours and schedule facebook posts about how great I'd be at making stuff sustainable. Wish me luck.
Anyway. The book.
It's written as an antidote to America's relationship with food. The typical western diet (he aims it at the USA but here in England much of it rings true too) is horrendously unhealthy for human beings, and so enormous profitable industries have grown up both feeding us this filth (McDonalds et al) and trying to help cure us of it (pseudoscientific nutritional studies, food products with made up benefits, stupid diet fads, etc). Pollan has spent years researching the actual truth of what we know about our food's impact on our wellbeing, and it's actually quite simple. He boils it down into three broad strokes; eat food, mostly plants, not too much. Building on his extensive depth of knowledge and on less-grounded but surprisingly helpful and relevant scraps of folk-wisdom, he works these principles out in 64 easily-digestible apothegms to help reshape our attitudes to food and make us healthier, happier eaters. Some of these smack true ("Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry"), hit hard ("It's not food if it's called by the same name in every language"), narrowing our options ("Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself") but inarguably for our best interests ("Try not to eat alone"). Basically, buy raw ingredients yourself, mostly plant-based, cook proper meals and eat sensibly. I already do* these things so grand.
As a compact, concise, clear little book, I hope it will be something of a silver bullet in tackling the west's horrific relationship with our foodstuffs. It has the potential to sell extremely widely and be hugely influential in reforming attitudes to the edible, with potentially enormous implications for public health.
My one gripe with it is the lack of focus on food sustainability, which is a gigantic issue relating at many points to what he discusses. He advocates substantial reduction in meat and dairy, and trying to buy non-processed local produce, which is great as it aids the cause of our ecosystem, but he doesn't directly endorse aiming for veganism, vegetarianism (or even 'ish'). He even takes a stand against meat substitutes,** on the grounds that they are processed and 'fake'. These are things I'd quarrel with him about to some degree but given that his book is aimed at food health, not food sustainability, I can forgive him these.
It's overall a great little book. Buy one for every person you know whose diet is terrible. Saying that sounds insensitive but if they take heed they may well be able to form new habits and escape a lifetime of miserable obese slavery to America's fourth most revered and third least benevolent god, Junk Food.
* Rule 64, "Break the rules once in a while", I am glad to have, as it allows me to retain the indispensable suffix 'ish' on my status as a herbivore.
** Not all of them. Quorn is literally grown in vats, so while I'd still argue it's far better than meat and should for that reason be encouraged, fair enough. Tofu, tempeh and other such ancient soy-based protein-lumps he allows. I'd like to think the wholly-plant-derived products of certain modern innovators would count too.
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