In Defense of Food

In this first blog, I will talk about the first couple of chapters in Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food. Within these chapters, Pollan talks about and attacks the food industry, nutritionists, the "Western Diet", and how food is made. Also, he gives away the whole point of the book and his whole reason for writing the book very early on. The main point of the book, Pollan says, is to eat food but not too much, and he says you should eat mostly vegetables. That right there is a very small general outline of the book and its main point. One thing that he tries to make very clear when he says “eat food”, is to eat real food. What he means by this is to eat the wholesome kinds of food that we have eaten for most of our existence. He attacks the new, processed, chemically induced food with all of its nutrients that have been believed to give us a healthier diet and way of living. He pronounces this as completely wrong. Pollan argues that our “food” has been replaced by “nutrients”. As I read more and more about this point that Pollan introduced about food and nutrients, I realized that I agreed with what he was saying. He talks about how food in our world today is all about things like lowering cholesterol, saturated fat, and having fiber but that it misses some essential points along the way. He says that people and scientists are almost starting to look too much into the idea of food and eating healthier and with this, food is becoming artificial. These things have started to take away from the old, wholesome foods that use to fill people’s lives. Pollan argues that when foods are just filled with chemicals and nutrients, they can at times lack any vitamins, essential fats, or amino acids that people need. This article that I found really supports the idea of eating more wholesome, "real" foods instead of the nutrient enhanced foods of today.http://www.foodrenegade.com/food-not-nutrients/