In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan: Book Review
I was inclined to like Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food,” which is a follow-up to his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” before I even started reading it. I mean, the thesis of the book is “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” How could I not support that?
Overall, the book provides a lot of valuable information about the world in which we currently live, and how a simple statement like “Eat Food” is not as easy as it might seem in a world of foodlike substances masquerading as nutritious food. I think it is an important book, especially for people who haven’t read a lot on this topic and are interested in learning more.
While I like the book overall, certain things seemed to be completely misleading. All of the correct information is in the book, but sometimes written in a way that might lead people to the wrong conclusion. Pollan writes about two major studies that look at the link between low-fat diets and cancer risk. In both cases, he admits that no one in either study was consuming what is considered a low-fat diet, but then he proceeds to question other flawed elements that could have contributed to the lack of results. Was the problem possibly looking at one component of food separately? Maybe how the information was gathered?
While I think it is fair to ask these questions of nutritional studies in general, it seems strange to keep probing why no link was found when the first thing he admits is that no one on the study followed the low-fat diet in the first place. If in a low-fat study, no one in the low-fat group is able to follow a low-fat diet, is there any benefit to even reporting the findings of the study let alone question what else might have contributed to the study’s problems? Newspapers were quick with the headlines that no link was found between a low-fat diet and cancer risk, but once again, it seems the fact that no one here followed the guidelines that would have led to such a correlation is just one of many things that were wrong with the study. No link can be found between two things if one of the two things is not present in the equation, which is not how a lot of people absorbed the conclusions of those studies.
If anything, the main question is why these low-fat studies were allowing 20 percent calories from fat, when all of the low-fat advocates use a diet of about 10 percent calories from fat. That’s the range where you find the people making such claims in the first place, be it McDougall, Ornish, or The China Study (And Pollan references T. Colin Campbell pointing out this very fact about this study in this very section, which is even more confounding). It just seems to reinforce the same confusion Pollan is trying to avoid by referencing a study that was flawed from the start and trying to further discern what went wrong.
Pollan also seems to leave the door open to meat eating whenever he mentions the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. It seemed reminiscent of how Mark Bittman went through such pains to ensure people knew he only authored a nearly 1000-page vegetarian cookbook; he wasn’t directly advocating a vegeterian lifetyle, God forbid. On one hand, I do think this will help Pollan get out his message to meat-eaters more directly, since he is on their side and not a “radical vegetarian,” it is also confounding that he soft-sells his own thesis so directly. Talking about heart disease and cancer, Pollan writes it is not a good idea to eat tremendous quantities of meat, and that studies show the greater your meat intake the greater your risk, he adds that “studies of flexitarians suggest that small amounts of meat - less than one serving a day - don’t appear to increase one’s risk.” In a book rife with large footnotes, and a detailed list of sources at the end, I was unable to figure out the studies from which that tidbit of information was found.
To be fair, I dismiss the whole flexitarian language as a bit of a catch-all for people who like the notion of eating vegetarian, except for when they don’t want to. Do we really need a special term for people who eat everything, albeit in supposed moderation? Don’t get me wrong, I suppose I’m happier to give them this term than have more vegetarians who eat chicken and fish. Anything that can bring a bit more purity to vegetarian meaning only ovo-lacto and vegan meaning no animal products is possibly a step in the right direction, but I just call them omnivores. Why do we need a new term for what boils down to animal products and everything else vegetarian? They’re just omnivores.
When it comes to eating meat, Pollan admits that, save for vitamin B12, “every nutrient found in meat can be obtained somewhere else.” He even notes that B12 is bacteria-based and not anything unique to meat. Of course, he goes on from there to add: “But meat, which humans have been going to heroic lengths to obtain and have been relishing for a very long time, is nutritious food, supplying all the essential amino acids as well as many vitamins and minerals, and I haven’t found a compelling health reason to exclude it from the diet.”
So, after he says there’s nothing unique in meat from a nutrition standpoint, he reinforces all of the nutritional elements (that he already said can be found somewhere else) that are in the meat. And since we know Pollan is familiar with the work of T. Colin Campbell linking animal protein consumption to cancer promotion (The China Study is listed in the sources at the end of the book), it makes you wonder what would qualify as a “compelling health reason” if cancer risk doesn’t make the list.
Pollan also writes that “in all my interviews with nutrition experts, the benefits of a plant-based diet provided the only point of universal consensus.” It did strike me funny that his thesis about nutritionism looking for specific nutrients or components in food for your health didn’t prevent him from pointing out that scientists may disagree what is beneficial about eating plants. “Is it the antioxidants in them? The fiber? The omega-3 fatty acids?” he questions on behalf of scientists, whereby his acceptance of meat gets a pass based solely on history and culture. I realize he wasn’t really probing this point, but it seemed strange in a book advocating a whole food, plant-centered diet.
Certain advice in the book does sounds worthwhile. Not buying food your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as being food is fine, but I also find that the cultural argument connected to that notion has a breaking point. In my experience, it seems too easy to mistake eating culturally without enough regard that what we’re calling dinner would have been our ancestor’s special occasion or holiday meal, tipping toward the meat and rich foods that could never have been a part of their normal routine if for no other reason than cost alone. This is covered by Pollan’s admonition to eat “not too much,” of course, but that piece seemed to not get as much attention.
He also admires the notion of the Slow Food Movement and its grass-fed meat from pastured cows, and the usual take that anything outside of industry and animal agriculture is better. Now, there’s no question it is better for you than McDonalds or what you can probably get in your local supermarket. But, this whole argument would never work on a large scale, as the ability for everyone to eat organic, pastured meat worldwide is not realistic based on the cost and requirements to switch to a system that requires so much more land and upkeep. So, it’s better, but no matter how much Alice Waters and company push this concept, I can’t imagine that it will ever grow beyond being an elitist exercise for people with expendable income without major changes in the way everyone eats worldwide.
There is definitely language used that fits into the Slow Food mentality, such as when he writes: “Eating a grass-fed burger when you can picture the greener pastures in which the animal grazed is a pleasure of another order, not a simple one, to be sure, but one based on knowledge rather than ignorance and gratitude rather than indifference.” Although I’m not one to reject things based solely on animal rights claims, to seemingly fetishize the happiness contained within the environment the animal experienced before it, sadly, had to be humanely sacrificed because you like burgers, rings a bit perverse to me.
Although I’m pointing out the problems I had with this book, I do think there is more good information than bad in it, and anything that gets people to start thinking about the things they eat is a step in the right direction. And I do think messengers like Pollan get the benefit of sliding past people whose defenses would be raised if some vegan was talking about why plant foods were better to eat for your health. Ironically, it is why I specifically follow the people I do, most of my heroes (Campbell, McDougall, Lyman, etc.) were led to veganism by the evidence and not the dogma. They didn’t work backwards from their conclusions. Campbell and Lyman killed thousands of animals, if not more, on their respective paths to veganism.
I applaud Michael Pollan for raising these issues in a world where people are giving up on knowledge in a world of conflicting studies and health claims. I know from personal experience how quick people are do dismiss any health claims (”Ehh, you say this, another study will say the opposite, forget it, I’ll just eat what I want.”) Like Bittman, Pollan sees the future of meat as more of a side dish than the main course, and that is a future that is at least headed in the right direction, as far as I’m concerned.
I am perfectly happy buying copies of this book to give as vegetarian Trojan horses to friends and family who I suspect might give it more credit since it doesn’t tell them point-blank to stop eating animal products. It does tell them to eat less of it, and to eat mostly plants. That’s a good start.
