Review of Section I "In Defensive of Food"

In the Introduction of his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan discusses how Americans have strayed away from what a diet should be. He states that food is not at "real" as it was back in the day. He comments on how America has become reliant on a "western diet" full of highly processed foods, refined grains, added fats and sugars, as well as increasingly larger portion sizes. This type of diet has, in Pollan's opinion, made Americans unhealthy and fat. He gives an overview of what the rest of the book will be like getting into details of nutrition, the "western diet," and an overview of healthy ways to eat in one's everyday life.

The first few sections (1-4) of Chapter 1 discuss what Pollan calls, “The Age of Nutritionism.” He explains that in the 1980s “real” ingredients vanished from the supermarkets in America. It became almost impossible to buy vegetables that hadn’t been sprayed with chemicals or buy foods without the terms “low cholesterol,” high fiber,” or “low fat.” He gives a history of vitamins and nutrients and talks about when people stopped eating food and began eating nutrients. He clarifies the difference between nutritionism and nutrition, explaining that “nutritionism” is the ideology of understanding the nutrient in order to understand the food. Pollan refers to food as being about divided into the healthy ones and the unhealthy ones, the good nutrients and the bad ones. The author insinuates that eating margarine, while advertised to be smarter and healthier, can actually be more dangerous than eating the butter it was designed to replace. He talks about how there are so many “fake” products in the market, such as imitations of actual ingredients. When the imitation law requiring those ingredients to be labeled “imitation” was thrown out the window, it paved the way for manufacturers to produce more of these fake low-fat products. Pollan discusses the “Golden Age” (after 1980) for food science, when the food industry began to reengineer popular foods to have more of the good nutrients and less of the bad. He makes a good point that many foods in the supermarket have health claims that do not necessarily mean that what a person is eating is good for them.

I agree with a lot of Michael Pollan’s key points, but I think he presents the information in such a way that is scares the audience into thinking that no matter what they are eating, it isn’t healthy and it will make them fat. The way he writes makes it confusing to know what is his opinion and what is fact. For example, I found an article from the Mayo Clinic regarding the butter margarine issue, which states that most margarines are actually better for your health than butter. I suppose he'll address some of these issues later in the book and things will be clarified.