In Defense of Food

Description

Michael Pollan examines how eating became governed by the language of nutrients rather than by recognizable foods, inherited practices, and ordinary appetite. He calls this ideology “nutritionism”: a habit of reducing meals to supposedly beneficial or harmful components while overlooking the larger patterns in which people eat. Pollan argues that the Western diet and the industries surrounding it have made food choices more complicated without necessarily making them healthier. He then converts that critique into a practical principle centered on ordinary food, moderation, and plants. Part manifesto and part inquiry into modern dietary confusion, the book asks readers to reconsider not merely which nutrients they consume, but the culture, assumptions, and habits that define a meal.

Themes