Book review - In Defense of Food

I've recently finished the book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. Wanna hear about it? Here ya go:

This food business is complicated. When it really should be quite simple - as Mr. Pollan starts off his book with the advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

But then, we dive into all of the murkiness that is the food industry and the muddiness that is the dietary advice industry (the latter is the industry I devoted many years of schooling to be a part of). Like I said, it's complicated. The main problem, he argues, is that our society is bent on looking for The Key Ingredient, and in doing so, we take whatever magic ingredient we think we find and put it in places that nature never even intended, in doses way out of whack with the original food product. True. We tend to be much more enamored with vitamin C added to our diet soft drink than with the plain old faithful orange, sitting in the produce section with no marketing plan at all.

I do believe he throws the baby out with the bathwater at times - for example, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing when we (meaning food scientists/food industry) add a nutrient to help relieve a known problem - iodine in salt, folic acid to grains, and so on.

He's also a little harsh on nutritionists, and lumps us all into the same category and misrepresents what we say.... but, hey, no hard feelings.

One point he made that I found very interesting was that when you do a word association with Americans and chocolate cake, Americans tend to say something along the lines as "fattening" or "guilt". However, the French tend to say "celebration" in the same situation. Now, I know some of you are still mad at the French (I'm talking to you, hubby), but you gotta admit, that's a better way to live.