I did not really like the book, In Defense of Food. I do think it is an important book for Americans in general because we are a nation affected by obesity. However, since I am a skinny ninth grade boy, I found it boring. I have trouble gaining weight, so the parts about losing weight didn't relate to me, but I did like hearing some of the tips about just being healthy. The tip to not buy your food where you buy your fuel makes sense. I also thought the rule to shop around the edges of the grocery store is a good idea. I never thought about how the grocery store sets the food up and how food companies market their food as healthy when it really isn't. The best example of that was the comment that a sweet potato sits quietly like a stroke victim, while the cereal has packaging that claims all kinds of health benefits.
As far as the actual writing, I found it hard to follow and had to get some help from my mom to understand what it was saying. The nutritional words were hard to pronounce and the first part of the book about the goverment and food regulations was technical and hard to follow. I felt like the book could have been have the pages if the author had just gone right to the basics and made his point without all the wordy language.
Tad, this was a difficult summer read. I hope you will think about ways that the book can relate to you, even though obesity is clearly not a concern. Pollan is definitely not just talking about obesity - that is just one of many consequences of the Western diet. I appreciate the developed points you make here and your organization. For next week's posts, focus on confused words (like half/have, lose/loose) and spelling. Also, make sure to use standard capitalization ("I" every time).
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