In Defense of Food

     In Defense of Food:An eaters Manifesto by Michael Pollan is a book designed to teach the average eater about nutritional science and the Western diet. He starts of with the line "Eat food. Not to much. Mostly plants." Which he later explains. Overall I think this book makes some interesting and useful points. He gives tips like "stay on the outsides of grocery stores" and "only eat foods your grandmother would recognize" which I had never heard and were very helpful. The most interesting point he made was that what you eat can be just as important as how you eat it. He made this point with the French and how they eat smaller portions of fattier foods plus they eat it slowly and savor it more. As you can imagine Americans may eat a little bit healthier foods but in larger amounts and very quickly.
       Pollan makes very interesting points and has great research and studies to back them up but he lacks the "fun" quality in his book. There was no funny stories no nothing to keep the average eater reading, which was his target audience. The one shocking research result he included was that in fact eating hot dogs and drinking chocolate milk would be the best thing for you if you were stranded on an island.  I enjoyed reading that part of the book because it was unexpected. The rest of the book was expected even if I didn't technically know all the facts there was nothing too surprising. Working in the fun factor into a nutritional science book but it would have made it a lot better.