Description:
From the author of the bestselling "The Omnivore's Dilemma" comes this bracing and eloquent manifesto that shows readers how they might start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich their lives and enlarge their sense of what it means to be healthy.

Mystery Lovers Review:
I discovered Michael Pollan through a New York Times Magazine article that was a forerunner to this book. In it he wrote so sensibily about food and eating that I was struck by the force of his arguments. What Pollan addresses, and argues so forcefully for, is a thoughtful approach to food that respects our biological machinery and the sort of nutrition that it is so well engineered to digest. Pollan writes seriously about a serious subject but does so in a way that is entertaining, compelling and fascinating. His primary argument in the current book is with the nutritionist approach to nutrition. This seemingly scientific attitude takes various food components: vitamins, flavinols, lecithin, anti-oxidants and so on; studies the effect of these on human health and then issues the results causing a wave of people eating blueberries or salmon or whatever food seems high in whatever is the latest nutritional component. Pollan instead argues that it is the combination of foods that makes us healthy since this is what the human body was designed for. As an example, he cites the so-called Meditterean diet, a favorite of a few years ago. All of a sudden olive oil was good, more fish, etc. Pollan's point, however, is that the diet that is so healthy for Mediterranean eaters has small portions: a little pasta, a small piece of meat, a salad, a dish of vegetables. This is healthy eating. In fact Pollan's entire prescription for healthy eating is simple: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. The first part of that, incidentally, means food your grandmother would have recognized as food. Breakfast bars, pop tarts and cheetos are definitely not included.