Book extract: In Defence of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating by Michael Pollan | Society | The Guardian
The first time I heard the advice to “just eat food” was in a speech by the nutritionist and author Joan Gussow, and it baffled me. Of course you should eat food - what else is there to eat? But Gussow, who grows much of her own food on a flood-prone finger of land jutting into the Hudson River, refuses to dignify most of the products for sale in the supermarket with that title. “In the 34 years I’ve been in the field of nutrition,” she said, “I have watched real food disappear from large areas of the supermarket and from much of the rest of the eating world.” Taking its place has been an unending stream of food-like substitutes - “products constructed largely around commerce and hope, supported by frighteningly little actual knowledge”.
I don’t think my Myoplex shakes qualify. On the other hand, I have been eating quite a bit more “food” than I used to. I have especially grown to like Clementines. Easy to peel, few seeds and less messy than other citrus.
IÂ am out of town later this week, so I am trying to stuff extra workouts in to make up for those I am likely to miss. Instead of a rest day on Sunday I did legs, I shifted my treadmill from Tuesday to Monday and I did upper body today. Tomorrow I will hit the legs again, though it is really too early - I am still sore from Sunday. But that would leave me with just two treadmill workouts on the schedule between Thursday and Sunday - which I think I can manage even on a busy business trip.