Michael Pollan

In his breakthrough book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, UC Berkeley professor Michael Pollan charted the history of four distinctly different meals, and in the process dug up some ugly truths about the food Americans eat (chief among them is the revelation that much of our diet is simply processed corn). That book was surprisingly entertaining, but it raised problems without posing answers. Thankfully, his newest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, uses as a starting point his previous book’s conclusion that too much of the food we eat is processed and unhealthy, and then thoughtfully outlines a diet that remedies this. Pollan will talk about the book tonight at 7 p.m. at Alverno College.