Comments on: In Defense of Food Isn’t About Nutrition (a review)

By: This Blog Needs No Name | June | 2010

This Blog Needs No Name | June | 2010 — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:58:35 +0000

[...] a contrarian viewpoint, check out In Defense of Food Isn’t About Nutrition (a review), according to which Pollan’s book is mostly “the desire to show off beating out [...]

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:35:39 +0000

Your article is littered with grammatical and spelling errors. Just wanted you to know that it severely hurts your credibility, and I think your analysis is very one note. Pollan’s book is genius; it tells the American public exactly what they need to hear and how to curb horrible eating trends.

By: Chris Hallquist

Chris Hallquist — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:39:56 +0000

I looked up the study Pollan cites, and it makes clear that hot dogs and milk chocolate are in fact the two foods that would allow you to survive on the island. But I don’t think it’s that hard to figure out from Pollan’s text alone. The phrase “one of the two foods” is a tip off–if the sprouts were one food, which was the other? Pollan doesn’t say, a pretty strong clue indicating he meant hot dogs and milk.

By: nick

nick — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:50:39 +0000

“Only 7 percent of the participants chose one of the two foods that would in fact best support survival.”

By that he means alfalfa sprouts – not hot dogs + milk chocolate. The other food (the other one of the two foods) he’s talking about is either bananas or spinach. You’re pretty much an idiot if you couldn’t figure that out.

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:08:02 +0000

Michael Pollan would never recommend that you be vegan. He purports eating the way our grandparents did, or moreso the way their grandparents did, and noone was vegan (basically) in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. So his suggestions won’t kill you.

By: Chris Hallquist

Chris Hallquist — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:53:00 +0000

I should also mention that vegans can get by just fine if they pay careful attention to the amino acid content of the plants they eat (something I also do). But in Pollan’s world, paying attention to amino acids is “nutritionism.”

By: Chris Hallquist

Chris Hallquist — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:48:47 +0000

Think about what the word “can” means. The issue is not that every diet following Pollan’s advice will kill you, but that *some* of them will. Vegetarians may not be dying in record numbers, but *some* of them do get protein deficiencies–I actually have a friend who had that problem. And protein is more of a problem for vegans–a vegetarian who drinks a few cups of milk every day (a category I fall under) is unlikely to have problems with protein.

By: Skeptico

Skeptico — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:12:23 +0000

“Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.” And you can kill yourself following it.

I don’t see where you show that you can kill yourself with this advice. Surely if that were true, vegetarians would be dying early in record numbers?