
The only rule about eating that you need to understand is eat mostly plant-based real food in moderation. Getting us back on track to healthier bodies and minds requires a paradigm shift about food production and food culture. In fact, an increase in the rate of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and obesity is the result of the industrialization of food and the advent of the Western diet. We’ve become obsessed with health labels and eating by the numbers, but none of this has resulted in better health. We have willingly handed the chef’s hat to the multi-million-dollar food and science industries, losing the culture of food along the way. Nutritional science and industry successfully shifted the focus from real food to nutrients and implied that eating was solely intended to bring about physical health. A reliance on three main staples-corn, soy, and wheat-infiltrated the industry as refined carbohydrates, processed sweeteners, and hydrogenated fats. Farmers started using pesticides and chemical enhancements to fortify soil for faster production, tainting the plants grown in it. The industrialization of food changed how food was produced and the nutritional value of food.

As we’ll see, a decision that was once successfully made by families guided by tradition was turned over to those who benefit most from consumer confusion. Since the mid-20th century, Americans have looked to the government and scientists to tell them what to eat and what not to eat.


So why does food need defending? In In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan distinguishes between real food and processed food and how the reliance on the latter leads to a society plagued by Western diseases.

There are thousands of options of what to eat and a myriad of ways to eat it. 1-Page Summary 1-Page Book Summary of In Defense of FoodĪmerican society is inundated with food.
