{"id":21,"date":"2009-05-11T21:57:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T01:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/?p=21"},"modified":"2009-05-11T21:57:45","modified_gmt":"2009-05-12T01:57:45","slug":"just-finished-reading-in-defense-of-food-by-michael-pollan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/2009\/05\/11\/just-finished-reading-in-defense-of-food-by-michael-pollan\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Finished Reading: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan"},"content":{"rendered":"

I lovelovelove Michael Pollan<\/a>. Botany of Desire<\/a> was such a unique book, and Omnivore’s Dilemma<\/a> might as well be my bible. In Defense of Food<\/a> doesn’t live up to his other works–it reads more like an appendix to Omnivore’s Dilemma–but it was an engaging little philosophy of how to eat. As Pollan sums it up: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. He goes on to explain each of those sentences in the last third of the book and spends the first two-thirds delving into what he calls nutritionism<\/a> and why it’s so bad for us eaters.<\/p>\n

It all seems very straightforward, and it was, but one thing I was surprised to find here, in this manifesto from a Berkeley professor who’s friends with Alice Waters<\/a> and shops at Berkeley Bowl<\/a>, was a tone that struck me as deeply (politically) conservative:<\/p>\n

One of the hallmarks of a traditional diet is its essential conservatism. Traditions in food ways reflect long experience and often embody a nutritional logic that we shouldn’t heedlessly overturn. So consider this subclause to the rule about eating a healthy diet: regard non-traditional foods with skepticism. Innovation is interesting but when it comes to something like food, it pays to approach novelties with caution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Replace “food” and “nutrition” with “government” and “politics” and you’ve got something that could have come straight from William F. Buckley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There’s been a lot made the last few months (years?) about the conservative movement needing to get back to principles. As a Cambridge-living, Obama-supporting, Whole Foods-shopping elitist, you might be surprised to know that I heartily support a resurgent conservative movement, mostly for the same reasons Pollan supports it when it comes to food: I think we should be a little bit more skeptical about innovation; there are things worth preserving in tradition, and we shouldn’t be pushing for change simply for the sake of change; and we should all be a little bit more skeptical and questioning of authority. If a conservative, Republican candidate ran with that platform (and was able to do it while eschewing the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Focus on the Family), he might have my vote and convince other “liberals” of my generation (the less ideological, more pragmatic stripe) to swing right as well. There are some candidates who just might be that guy: Charlie Crist<\/a>, Jon Huntsman<\/a>, I would have said John McCain before his disgraceful showing last fall. Ironically, the politician who most reflects those values might just be the guy in the White House right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I lovelovelove Michael Pollan. Botany of Desire was such a unique book, and Omnivore’s Dilemma might as well be my bible. In Defense of Food doesn’t live up to his other works–it reads more like an appendix to Omnivore’s Dilemma–but it was an engaging little philosophy of how to eat. As Pollan sums it up: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2061,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}