AD Book Club: In Defense of Food

The folks over at Food Crypt recently posted a link to Michael Pollan discussing his latest book, In Defense of Food, for WBEZ Chicago. It’s a great introduction into Pollan’s work and worth checking out whether you’ve read any of his books or not.

I’m in the middle of In Defense of Food now and it’s reinforcing and expanding on many of the points made in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan’s detailed look at the Western diet has also made me take a closer look at what I’m consuming and how it can/will effect my health in the long run (members of every generation on one side of my family have dealt with cancer of some portion of the digestive tract, resulting in invasive surgeries and painful recoveries). A quick inventory of a day of eating for me showed well-balanced meals, but my snacks were almost exclusively processed foods like chips, cookies, etc. It’s a reflection of how my diet has been slowly deteriorating over the past few months. I’m consuming less fresh fruit, fewer vegetables, fewer whole grains, and little fiber. As I read a chapter of the book in a train station over the weekend, I was actually eating a bag of Skittles (original flavor).

I am by no means becoming a health-obsessed eater, just a more conscious one. The thesis on the cover of In Defense of Food sets simple guidelines: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”