In defense of food : an eater’s manifesto / Compiled by Michael Pollan.

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” — Author’s central advice.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: An eater’s manifesto -- I. The age of nutritionism: From foods to nutrients; Nutritionism defined; Nutritionism comes to market; Food science’s golden age; The melting of the lipid hypothesis; Eat right, get fatter; Beyond the pleasure principle; The proof in the low-fat pudding; Bad science; Nutritionism’s children -- II. The Western diet and the diseases of civilisation: The aborigine in all of us; The elephant in the room; The industrialisation of eating: What we do know; From whole foods to refined; From complexity to simplicity; From quality to quantity; From leaves to seeds; From food culture to food science -- III. Getting over nutritionism: Escape from the Western diet; Eat food: Food defined; Mostly plants: What to eat; Not too much: How to eat.

A manifesto arguing that rather than focusing on nutrients, people should return to traditional eating: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It challenges the Western diet and explores the notion that industrial food production and nutrition-science have distorted what it means to eat well.