The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
A New York Times bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us - whether industrial or organic, alternative or processed - he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Michael Pollan has fast become my favorite author on the topic of food and eating. This is the third book of his I've enthusiastically devoured. He takes the time to follow the food chain from it's beginning to it's end. It was a fascinating trip which leaves the reader more knowledgable and maybe more concientious about what we choose to eat and how we do it.

"For we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world." -Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:

In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant — thought this time the obsessions revolves around the intoxicating effects of marijuana rather than the visual beauty of the tulip. How could flowers, of all things, become such objects of desire that they can drive men to financial ruin?

In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan argues that the answer lies at the heart of the intimately reciprocal relationship between people and plants. In telling the stories of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how they evolved to satisfy humankinds's most basic yearnings — and by doing so made themselves indispensable. For, just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme that Pollan evokes so brilliantly, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans to spread the species, giving the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom?

Weaving fascinating anecdotes and accessible science into gorgeous prose, Pollan takes us on an absorbing journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature.

-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:

The Botany of Desire is a fantastic book about the co-evolution between us and the plant world. The book is written in four chapters, each chapter being an example of a plant and it's relationship with us. Pollan writes about the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato. He starts with the apple and writes about John Chapman (better known as Johnny Appleseed) and his love of "wildness". He planted apples not in the rows we see now at apple orchards. He appreciated the more disorderly nature of wilderness. Pollan talks about the tulip and the desire for beauty in chapter two. Chapter three is marijuana and the almost universal desire for intoxication....not only of humans but animals as well. By the end of the book Pollan writes about the potato. We see the opposite end of the spectrum from Chapman's "wildness". We see men in lab coats genetically modifying the potato, taking control of it's genes and having their way with them. Pollan's writing is very passionate. His anecdotes along the way (especially his attempt at growing marijuana) are laughable. His love of gardening is saturated in these pages and by the end I was thinking seriously about starting my own garden!

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, the follow-up to his widely praised The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, should probably come with a warning: After reading this book, you may never shop, cook, or eat the same way again.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
The advice Michael Pollan gives in his new book, In Defense of Food: an eater's manifesto, is sound. It's important to be knowledgeable and make informed decisions about what we put into our bodies.

Pollan talks about food as science in the first part of the book. Scientists are trying to find out what is healthy and what is not but in many cases they are going about it the wrong way. They use a reductionist approach by looking at just vitamin C and lycopene, for instance, instead of looking at the whole tomato.

In the second part of the book Pollan looks at the Western Diet and all the diseases that are linked to it. He talks about how Industry has taken over the supermarket and changed the way we Americans eat.

Lastly, Pollan gives great advice on how we should be eating: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. This may sound simple but he goes into detail about how most of what we see at the grocery store is not real food but food-like substances. Here is some of my favorite advice he gives: If your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it. Shop at the periphery of the grocery store and you'll stay away from most of the junk. If something contains more than 5 ingredients don't eat it.

In Defense of Food really gets one thinking about what our ancestors ate and how different it is from what most Americans eat today. I think we would all do well to follow Pollan's recommendations about what we eat and the way we eat it.