He starts the book by saying "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." and this about sums up the entire book. I find it pretty incredible that 3 very simple sentences, 7 very simple words, can be so incredibly complex when you actually sit down and think about it.
Eat Food. Seems so simple, what else would we eat? This is one of the things he breaks down in the book. What actually constitutes as food and what is more of a "food product". The majority of what we eat are actually food products, or imitations of the actual food. Ever wondered why there are so many ingredients listed on the back of a loaf of bread? How many ingredients do you use when you make bread at home? I bet you can count them on one hand.
He also talks a lot about nutritionism: what is is, how it came about. Basically nutritionism is the current way "we" look at food. The food industry is completely nutrient based. Everything is spoken about in terms of "no cholesterol", "low saturated fat", "high fiber". The major shift to this kind of thinking happened right around the time a committee was formed, in 1968, to investigate the increase of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and obesity. At the the end of this investigation the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs recommended that Americans cut their intake of red meat and dairy products. Well guess who didn't like this idea? The cattle ranchers and dairy farmers. Long story short the wording was changed to say lower your intake of saturated fats and from then on when recommendations were made they were always nutrient based so as to not make anyone mad.
Goes without saying the food industry liked this also since they could just changed the claim on the box to fit whatever the latest research says. This would not harm the sales of their product and it was a cheap and easy way to keep up with the latest fads, currents ones includes "Now with more whole grains." and "trans fat free".
Anyway this isn't a book report so I won't break down the entire book but that's just a bit about what he talks about. Besides if I talk about everything here, what motivation would you have to actually read the book. Others points included the shift from leaves to seeds, the Western diet and resulting disease, organics and the entire food chain from the soil to the plants to us.
Go out, get this book (I recommend your local library), read it and then come back here and tell me what you think. Would love to have a little faux book club on this book. Very interested to hear the views of others and if it's changed the way you look at food!
I am def. going to get this out of the library. I really feel that as a culture we have become so obsessed with things being low-cal, low-fat, low-carb, low-whatever that we forget to eat real food in normal amounts. Sure a breakfast of egg replacement omelet with fat-free cheese and light bread with margarine may only have 200 calories, but its pretty much entirely man-made chemicals. That will surely kill you faster than an organic egg, a slice of home-made bread and a swipe of real butter. Filling out my inter-library loan request right now!
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