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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: Homestead <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
  • Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:53:28 -0700

This is the review I have written for Amazon.com:

Want health?

“. . . no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we American do—and no people suffer from as many diet-related health problems.”

What to do? Like so much today, food truth is hard to find. We can’t trust government to tell us the truth because it is influenced by the industrial agriculture giants that produce most food. We certainly can’t trust labels using “natural” to describe chemical agglomerations. And, frankly, we can’t trust doctors because they are simply not educated about food. Nutritionists? Many are educated, but how do we learn their bias? And, can they overcome “the pitfalls of reductionism and overconfidence?”

I trust Michael Pollan. He has now written enough books regarding food that we know who and how he is. If he has a bias, it seems to be that he really gives a damn about we American consumers.

Pollan shows how, starting in 1977, government dietary decrees began to speak in terms of nutrients rather than specific foods. This was due to the pushback from the meat industry against the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. Senator George McGovern’s committee had made the fatal mistake of suggesting that Americans should eat less red meat and fewer dairy products. Enter agribusiness lobbyists. And that changed the whole story of the Western Diet. “The Age of Nutritionism had arrived.” No longer would certain foods be extolled; now we would be sold nutrients. No matter that these mysterious and unpronounceable ingredients might be manufactured rather than grown.

At the end of the day, and near the end of this most valuable book, is the suggestion: “Cook and, If You Can, Plant a Garden.” I relate well to that. I was lucky--I grew up poor in a family that raised most of our food. The proof of the eating is that my parents long outlived their eight younger “buy it at the store” siblings; Dad died at 93 and Mother is still avidly gardening at 94.

If we can’t raise food we can buy from small producers as close to us as possible--we can be locavores. The more we know about the people who produce what we put in our body the more we can trust our food- buying decisions. And when we buy food we vote our values. The shorter the distance from field to plate, the less oil is consumed. Win-win.

So buy from nearby growers. Buy from farmer’s markets and CSAs. Spend more money on best-quality food and spend less money on health insurance. It’s an essential choice.

I won’t be a spoiler and tell you about the new and contradictory information about fats, cholesterol and heart disease. I won’t bore you with the stories of how our present unhealthful dietary condition came to be and the many businesses and agencies who have created it. And I won’t tell you what you should do, beyond this: read this book and act on the uncommon commonsense knowledge it gives you.



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