The King’s Green Pad

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. By Michael Pollan. New York: Penquin Group, 2008. 244 pp.

Reviewed By Arlette Zinck

Underpinning the argument of Michael Pollan’s new book is a simple but profound observation:
If my explorations of the food chain have taught me anything, it’s that it is a food chain, and all the links in it are in fact linked: the health of the soil to the health of the plants and animals we eat to the health of the food culture in which we eat them to the health of the eater, in body as well as mind. (144)

In his Defense of Food, Pollan argues for an overhaul of both our understanding of food and the practices we follow in eating it. Our internal and external environments are inextricably connected, and both are in serious need of change.

But why a “Defense of Food,” you might ask. To whom, exactly, might one need to defend the premise that we ought to be eating food? Is there an alternative?

The Defense, it would appear, is required by most everyone, and the alternative is the imitation food that has overtaken western grocery shelves in the years since the ideology of “nutritionism” has taken root. Pollan’s study moves from this premise into a three part analysis. In section one he defines the term “nutritionism” and provides a potted history of its development. From here, Pollan explores the troubling fruits of nutritionism, the “western diet” and the host of western diseases that come along with it. In the final section of this study, he provides a way out: a series of new food algorithms, patterns of thought and new behaviours, that could lead us away from nutritionism and toward a renewed vision for our bodies and our world.

Pollan’s exploration of nutritionism is fascinating. He combines his journalistic sense for a good story with the academic rigor required to trace the history of this idea from its origins in 19th century science, through the early industrialisation of the food industry, and into 20th century language politics. Nutritionism is, according to Pollan’s analysis, an intellectual and historical phenomenon responsible for the strange and wondrous lines of thought that allowed an entire western world full of eaters to shift their attentions away from whole food and towards its constituent parts – the “nutritional elements” contained within. As long as eaters are distracted by their quest to consume the elements that are deemed good for them, and to avoid the ones that are frowned upon, they will continue to be seduced by the highly processed pseudo foods that promise to deliver the good and banish the bad. Pollan’s hypothesis makes excellent sense of the otherwise incomprehensible phenomena of low fat potato chips and the low carb label on a package of licorice. His argument also does a great job of pointing out the damage that can occur to all elements of the food chain when lack of consumer vigilance combines with the corporate power of Big Food to manipulate the language and laws that govern food production. At the end of this section, I was nostalgic for the day when margarine was labelled artificial butter, and when my children’s natural predilection for all things sweet was not aided and abetted by the health claims on the box of Fruit Loops.

Nutritionism’s existence will be, I suspect, something of a revelation for many readers. Its insidious effects are more obvious. Most of us are well aware that diabetes, cancer and obesity can be traced to what we eat. Pollan’s evaluation of the western diet and the diseases that accompany it is interesting, but not startling. The “algorithms” Pollan offers in the last section of his book are likewise helpful but not surprising. They can be summed up in the 7 words that directed and sustained this study: “eat food; not too much; mostly plants.”

The primary emphasis in this book is the connection between food and health, but Pollan also makes clear the bigger environmental implications of our individual food choices. The industrial production of food has drastically reduced crop diversity and increased the volume and variety of pesticides, herbicides and antibiotics required to sustain production. While more food with less nutritional value creates serious problems for the people who eat it, the practice also endangers our food supply by reducing diversity, and poisoning the earth and animals we raise for food.

Wholesale change is called for, and Pollan’s readable and interesting analysis helps to bring us to the root of the problem by making our own covert thought-processes about food transparent to us. The change needed is not complicated, but it will require uncomfortable adjustments. We need to spend more time and money cooking, buying and perhaps even growing real foods. Pollan’s defense of food is compelling. It will demand a response from its readers.