I just finished reading a great book that finally makes sense of all of the conflicting nutrition info that’s out there.  It’s called “In Defense of Food – An Eater’s Manifesto” by Michael Pollan.  You need to read this.  No seriously – you need to read this.  Period.  It’s that good.

This book is written for the layperson so there’s no technical jargon or scientific mumbo-jumbo.  In plain and simple English, Michael Pollan explains how we have gone from talking about about “food” to being overly concerned about “nutrition.”  He shows how science has attempted to divide whole foods into their separate nutritional parts in an attempt to make them “more nutritious” and as a result, have ended up making them less healthy.

So forget about dieting and read this book instead.  You’ll learn how to eat, and the weight will come off naturally.  Here’s some of what’s included in the book…

In the first section, “The Age of Nutritionism,” the author traces the early history of “food science” and explains how we’ve come to where we are today.  You’ll learn that once the powerful special interest groups like the American Dairy Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, to name a few, flexed their political and financial muscle, it became political suicide for any Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official to recommend eating less red meat or drinking less dairy.
However, if you broke the foods down into their nutritional components, you could get away with saying “eat less saturated fats.”  After all, there is no “Saturated Fat Association” in Washington.  Unfortunately, once you started speaking in terms of nutritional components, no one really knew what kinds of foods you were talking about – one of the main reasons we Americans like to think we’re eating right, yet somehow we keep getting fatter.

The second section deals with “The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization.”  You’ll read about how most of the health issues that Americans deal with are directly related to the foods we eat – and the foods we eat, of course, have become big business with hundreds of millions of dollars spend on marketing campaigns and advertising.

Some of the topics in the “Industrialization of Eating” chapter include:

• How we’ve gone from whole foods to refined foods;
• From complex foods to simple ones;
• How we’ve given up quality for quantity;
• How our diet has gone from mostly plants and leaves to mostly seeds;
• And how our society has changed from Food Culture to Food Science.

The last section is the real “meat” of the book (sorry).  Here, the author sums up everything you need to know about health and nutrition in 7 short words:  Eat Food.  Mostly Plants.  Not Too Much.

Isn’t that elegant?  Follow these short instructions and you’ll never go wrong.  Eat Food.  Mostly Plants.  Not Too Much.

The rest of the book simply fills out the details on how to do this:

1. Eat Food. Real food – not the artificial, fake stuff that masquerades as food in the supermarket.  Things that will help you identify real food include:
   • Don’t eat anything your Great Grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
   • Don’t eat anything that won’t rot or spoil.  If it’s got that much chemical preservative in it, you don’t want it in your body.
   • Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than 5 in number, or that include high-fructose corn syrup.
   • Avoid food products that make health claims.
   • Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle where most of the refined and artificial foods are.
   • Get out of the supermarket whenever possible and visit your local Farmer’s Market.
2. Mostly Plants. Ways to help you do this include:
   • Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.  The leaves tend to have a lot more vitamins and minerals than the other parts of the plant.
   • The quality of the plants is directly correlated to the quality of the soil it grows in.
   • Eat wild foods when you can.  Expand the variety of what you eat as much as possible.
3. Not Too Much.
   • Pay more, eat less.  Focus more on good, high quality foods instead of mass quantities of the cheap stuff.
   • Eat full meals instead of snacking all day long, and do all your eating at the table, not in your car or at your desk.
   • Eat slowly, and try not to eat alone.  Make a eating a social event where food is a secondary consideration, not the main event.

If you really want to improve your overall health and lose weight (or stop gaining) at the same time, all without having to worry about carbs, fats, and proteins, then get this book.  Buy from Amazon using the link at the right (I think I get a whole 50 cents if you use my affiliate link), buy it from your local Barnes and Noble, or go check it out at your local library.  However you get it, get it.  It’s that important.

Hiram
The Balanced Health Guy
Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach (NESTA)

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