Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much. This is Michael Pollan’s mantra.
I first saw Michael Pollan’s name when his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma was front and center on the best seller rack at Barnes and Noble. The title caught my eye, but since I was homeschooling two young children at the time, reading 450 pages of non-fiction was not part of my game plan.
That was almost a dozen years ago. Several years later, his name was popping up again, mostly by way of Lisa Leake’s cookbook 100 Days of Real Food. Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food inspired her to change her family’s diet. She in turn has become her own best selling author, inspiring and providing support for over one million people across the country in their quests to eat real food.
So who is this Michael Pollan? In addition to being an author, Michael Pollan is a journalism professor at UC Berkeley, documentary film maker and activist. (Pop culture fun fact: He’s also the brother of actress Tracy Pollan – Michael J. Fox’s wife)
Michael Pollan is an engaging author and speaker. He’s easy to read and listen to. His books and documentaries are filled with solid information and ideas that will inspire you to change the way you grocery shop and eat. His passion and excitement about the real food movement is highly contagious.
After reading Lisa Leake’s high praise of Pollan’s book In Defense of Food , I decided to take a look. This book is only 200 pages. Doable. Here, Pollan takes a look at what is being called “nutritionalism” (hyper focus on the nutrition components of food and food products rather than on food in its nourishing, whole state), and how, and why, the food manufacturing industry has so much influence on what we eat. But most importantly, he helps us take a step back to look at what we’re eating and why we should be critical and educated consumers of real food.
Another of Pollan’s books, Food Rules, has become a companion to In Defense of Food. This handy, compact paperback neatly and light-heartedly sums things up nicely. It’s a quick read of 83 “rules” for buying and eating real food. A few of my favorite rules are:
#21 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.
#23 It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles)
#30 Eat animals that have themselves eaten well.
#39 Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk
And my all time favorite:
#22 It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car
(From Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual )
Some links to Michael Pollan’s work:
Books: In Defense of Food , Food Rules , The Omnivore’s Dilemma,
Documentaries: Cooked – A Netflix Documentary Series, 2016 ; In Defense of Food ; Food, Inc
(These can be found in other places as well, including your local library.)
His website: http://michaelpollan.com/
