“That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.
“…it does seem to me a symptom of our present confusion about food that people would feel the need to consult a journalist, or for that matter a nutritionist or doctor or government food pyramid, on so basic a question about the conduct of our everyday lives as humans. I mean, what other animal needs professional help in deciding what it should eat? True, as omnivores—creatures that can eat just about anything nature has to offer and that in fact need to eat a wide variety of different things in order to be healthy—the 'What to eat' question is somewhat more complicated for us than it is for, say, cows. Yet for most of human history, humans have navigated the question without expert advice. To guide us we had, instead, Culture, which, at least when it comes to food, is really just a fancy word for your mother. What to eat, how much of it to eat, what order in which to eat it, with what and when and with whom have for most of human history been a set of questions long settled and passed down from parents to children without a lot of controversy or fuss.”
So begins Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. In it, he defines what food IS (not quite as simple as you’d think, in today’s world), and how to eat for enjoyment and for good health instead of just for the nutrients.
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1 comment:
Michael Pollan is a very important social activist, and the most important thought leader in the area of food, and the changes we must make to dismantle big agri-business, and infuse ourselves with a enlightened mind and dedication to health.
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