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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

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.