Quick Review – In Defense of Food – Michael Pollan
I read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food because it seemed like a good way to round out my survey of currently popular books about food. I say, skip this and move right on to Nina Planck’s Real Food, Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calfories, The Untold Story of Milk, or any number of other books that critically address our nation’s food supply and ‘nutrition’ based diet.
This book is no more than a lengthened magazine article. It lacks depth, and moreover, passion. The book lacks the investigative journalism of Pollan’s previous Omnivore’s Dilemma, and falls down in the interpretation of science. He criticizes Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories), but without conviction. This pamphlet may have some merit, but Pollan lost credibility when he failed to acknowledge that lactose intolerance is a scientific invention. Unpasteurized milk has plenty of lactase which make lactose digestible. Our country’s insistence on processes that ostensibly protect our food supply by destroying essential enzymes and nutrients is completely ignored.
