BOOK REVIEW: Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

 "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Michael Pollan's most recent investigative journalism wonder has got me bandying the word "nutritionism" about. I mean--he means--to describe a cultural ideology that places value on nutrients rather than food itself. That is, the parts rather than the whole. Unfortunately, decades of parsed nutritionist science--and the political wrangling that often intersected with it--have brought us to a point where most of what we're eating isn't really food. It's edible. It's chemically altered to be infused with a vitamin or fiber or what not. But as a product of nature, hardly. It's a product of a laboratory, and the scientists we are trusting with our health.

And now, as Pollan repeatedly points out, we're in the weird position of turning to investigative journalists like himself to find out what to eat; we're perhaps the first full generation so disconnected from our land and history, the great teachers of eating of those who came before us. There's a lot of profit from the widespread confusion over food--and a lot of illness too.

For my part, I find myself saying crap like "oh fish oil's really good for you" and "choose the tea with antioxidants in it," even though I have no idea what I'm talking about, and, as Pollan indicates, is playing into the food-as-parts rather than whole foods. It's a little frightening to see how susceptible I am to this food marketing, even when I've been more intentional about eating unprocessed, non-chemically soaked food in the last few years.

I think it's interesting that this book approaches food from a health vantage point; I hadn't really noticed it was missing from his other book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is a brilliant work that focuses on ethical and environmental nature of food. I rather assumed that it was all the same thing: what's ethically and environmentally good is also healthy for me. But I'm glad he's playing it out in this follow-up. He's a fantastic writer whose commentary leaves room for nuance--nothing's wholly one thing or another which is, um, just how life is. And his writing is compulsively readable.

It can be daunting to think that nothing less than a culture change is in order: Pollan is right about food not merely being 'fuel,' but inextricably tied to our social lives and work lives and family lives. I would've liked more from him on how to facilitate such a big change: he basically says, yes, food will cost more money and time, and it is worth it. I believe him. But while he makes a good case for anteing up the money (pointing out that it's not so much an issue of affordability for most of us as it is of priority, and he also advocates eating less), he gives less space to the time issue.

I'm not used to spending a good deal of time cooking my dinner and especially when I eat alone--now that I'm in my own apartment for the first time ever--I've found it difficult to create new habits where I make my meals a priority of time and effort.

I tried the night I finished In Defense of Eating. Cooked. Lit a candle. Took all the crap off the table I eat at. Even said a prayer before I dug in.

One guy I lived with at Haley House  led us through an exercise on retreat once, during a meal of lentils that he made and we ate with our hands, where he had us not pick up our next bite and hold it before us while we chewed. You merely had to swallow before preparing your next bite. And it was hard. I never realized I had this gulping habit of eating. That night Ifinished Pollan's book, I tried it again, putting down my fork between bites and it was still hard.

But I suppose there's nothing to do but be patient with it and myself. Pollan talks about mind tricks to play on yourself to adjust your eating habits (like using smaller plates, since so many of us fall victim to visual cues in our eating, rather than how we feel), and I'm thinking of one for me: approaching the table I eat at as if it were something of an altar. (The candle gave me the idea.) What if I didn't drop my shit on it, as I would never do to an altar? What if I considered it sacred space? How would that affect how I eat, whether I have guests or I'm by myself? I'm going to try.

Speaking of culture shift: there are so many skills that we've lost in this nutritionism era. There's so many finds at the farmer's market that I can't name, let alone cook. I find myself gravitating to carrots, tomatoes, the usual-looking things. But I want to learn about all that other stuff, and how to prepare it. I wonder where one can go? I need to ask friends and soon-to-be friends. Wouldn't it be cool to have an evening, or series of evenings, where friends taught each other how to prepare a food the other(s) don't know about? Not just a dish, but a dish where the primary ingredient is something the others barely recognize.

I think our culture's ready for this shift. The Food Network, all these foodie books, the popularity of farmer's markets, the rise of organic--it seems to me to be a broad-scale movement reacting against the tide of crap food and science written about in this book.

One last thing about culture: it irritated me that Pollan used "Mom "as a stand in for the "old" way of doing things, I guess because it doesn't resonate with my own experience. I've had a growing distaste for processed food for years, and when I come home to my parents, and my mom puts herself out to make me a meal that she thinks I will love, that she thinks is healthy, but that is very processed and doesn't appeal to me, what to do? Generally, I eat it anyway. Who wants to criticize a meal made for you? When I'm in their home?

But still, I'm frustrated by not being able to communicate that, after a few days, I really want something fresh. Or why I don't want to eat the canned peaches that are coated in sugar and preservatives that my dad tells me is good for me. I don't know how to follow my own instincts for how to feed myself without coming across like I'm judging my very kind and generous parents.

Comments

[Liam]

I'm going to pick out the strangest plant I can find at the farmer's market today in tribute to this great book.

[Anna Clark]

I can't wait to hear all about your adventures with it!