Books (For Reviews Only)
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Before reading Michael Pollan’s latest foray into food — “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation” — I never would have thought a book with recipes could also brilliantly and coterminously fire one’s sense of moral comprehension and political imagination. Toss in a shot of spiritual zeal, and you have that rare, ranging breed of narrative…
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“Cooked” is vintage Pollan — lucid, vivid, nimbly associative, insightful and just plain fun to read. It’s unlikely to spark a shift in consciousness, the way “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” did. Still, any Pollan vintage is an occasion for celebration, and this one is the perfect accompaniment, indeed the inspiration for, some terrific home-cooked meals (there…
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The seven most famous words in the movement for good food are: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” They were written, of course, by Michael Pollan, in “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” the follow-up to “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Now Pollan might add three more words to the slogan: “And cook them.” Because…
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Ultimately, he makes the case that cooking is a political act, one that declares our resistance to the “learned helplessness” that the food industry likes to insist requires an outsourcing of dinner. “To cook for the pleasure of it,” he writes, “to devote a portion of our leisure to it, is to declare our independence…
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In the more than four decades that I have been reading and writing about the findings of nutritional science, I have come across nothing more intelligent, sensible and simple to follow than the 64 principles outlined in a slender, easy-to-digest new book called “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” by Michael Pollan.
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The most sensible diet plan ever? We think it’s the one that Michael Pollan outlined a few years ago: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” So we’re happy that in his little new book, “Food Rules,” Pollan offers more common-sense rules for eating: 64 of them, in fact, all thought-provoking and some laugh-out-loud funny.
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Clarity and inspiration both are to be found in a small book by journalism professor and food writer Michael Pollan. His “Food Rules” are direct, amusing and encouraging. Just what some of us need when our New Year’s resolve is dissolving into excuses.
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Meant to be a simple guide to eating, something anyone can use without reading through a lot of science and nutrition research.
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“A useful and funny purse-sized manual that could easily replace all the diet books on your bookshelf.”
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It doesn’t get much easier than this. Each page has a simple rule, sometimes with a short explanation, sometimes without, that promotes Pollan’s back-to-the-basics-of-food (and-food-enjoyment) philosophy.
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His work has been updated and made youth-friendly in a new edition, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids: The Secrets Behind What You Eat.” The target audience is 8- to 12-year-olds, though it might also appeal to adult readers turned off by drier nutrition- and environment-oriented tomes.
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Originally written for adults and now adapted for teens, this “must read” tells you much of what you need to know about the foods you put into your body on a daily basis.