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Constant Chatter Shopping Center - Real Food: What to Eat and Why
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List Price: $15.99
Our Price: $10.87
Your Save: $ 5.12 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 613
EAN: 9781596913424
ISBN: 1596913428
Label: Bloomsbury USA
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2007-06-12
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Release Date: 2007-06-12
Studio: Bloomsbury USA
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Editorial Reviews:
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Hailed as the “patron saint of farmers’ markets” by the Guardian and called one of the “great food activists” by Vanity Fair’s David Kamp, Nina Planck is single-handedly changing the way we view “real food.” A vital and original contribution to the hot debate about what to eat and why, Real Food is a thoroughly researched rebuttal to dietary fads and a clarion call for the return to old-fashioned foods.
In lively, personal chapters on produce, dairy, meat, fish, chocolate, and other real foods, Nina explains how ancient foods like beef and butter have been falsely accused, while industrial foods like corn syrup and soybean oil have created a triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The New York Times said that Real Food “poses a convincing alternative to the prevailing dietary guidelines, even those treated as gospel,” and that “radical” as Nina’s ideas may be, the case she makes for them is “eminently sensible.”
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Resource
Comment: I thought this was very well written and it confirmed much of what I had been thinking as well as introduced new issues to ponder. I like that Nina cites research and discusses historical precedents to support her contentions. She also isn't afraid to point out areas where the research is thin. Very reputable in my opinion and well worth reading for anyone.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A great foodie book.
Comment: Real Food by Nina Planck is a great read. She focuses on why old-fashioned, traditional foods worked for our ancestors and why the same food can nourish us today. I love her basic approach. Everyone should read this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unchallenging and possibly plagiarized
Comment: Lately, I have been in the habit of reading books that pair together - either by the same author or books that seem to treat the same topic. The two most recent books -- on the heels of the two Michael Pollan books I finished a few weeks ago, are "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" by Sandor Katz, the author of "Wild Fermentation" and "Real Food: What to Eat & Why" by Nina Planck. Since the Planck book is the least useful and most controversial, I'll start there - hoping to make this quick and painless.
"Real Food: What to Eat & Why" by Nina Planck has a beguiling cover that seems to offer promises of quality guidelines and content. While Planck writes with great passion in an accessible, chatty style, I found much of her book to be pompous, arrogant and repetitive. Although she does use footnotes in the first part of the book and lists a bibliography, her academic rigor is not nearly on the same level as "Omnivore's Dilemma."
In fact, there were several long sections that seem to be lifted right from Michael Pollan's book -- making "Real Food" seem more to me like a "Cliff Notes" version of "Omnivore's Dilemma" but tainted with a very subjected, personal angle that implies there is only one "right" diet and everyone else is an idiot. While Planck and Pollan are both journalists and food writers, it is clear that Planck's skill is not in writing -- her book seems like a very long blog article or diatribe. She relies heavily on secondary and tertiary sources, fails to properly substantiate many of her arguments except by anecdote -- you can hardly tear down the China Study, for example, by your own personal experience.
She also seems to be taking format cues from Sandor Katz's "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" -- both in terms of the structure of her book and the individual chapters. Her weak attempts at describing food preparation and providing resources don't hold water next to Katz's superior book which describes the experiences and experiments of him and his friends and is very strongly supportive of readers exploring and finding what works best for them.
Reading the reviews for Planck's book on Amazon and other places on the internet was highly entertaining -- she has a very vocal following who will defend to the death her assertions -- afterall, Planck's book validates their current diets making very few recommendations aside from staying away from packaged, processed food. It's still basically the Standard American Diet - lots of animal products, eat as much as you want. The redeeming factor is that she encourages people to strongly consider the source of their foods -- staying away from big corporate farm produced foods.
Her argument boils down to something pulled right from Pollan's writings: anything your grandmother made is 'real food. However, that was what Pollan offered as a guideline for selecting better prepared foods -- not as a pretext to eat whatever the hell you want. Planck maintains that you should eat as much as you want of anything that's not packaged or processed crap -- somehow, your body will know when to stop because those foods are more satisfying. This leaves out the obvious -- calories are calories and must be burned. People eat for many reasons -- hunger, boredom, happiness, sadness -- and satiety isn't always a cue for ending a meal.
Planck is vehemently (and obnoxiously) anti vegetarian, particularly anti-vegan, and there is not a lot of material provided to encourage independent, critical thought or to make space for other people's experiences or conclusions. She puts little value on moderation or exercise, and doesn't allow for differences in individual body chemistry.
Pollan, on the other hand, goes to Polyface farm and works on the farm, he goes hunting, he goes foraging -- he talks to real people, he dives in and describes his experiences. All Planck does is to read Pollan and a few other books and write an over-long newspaper column that incorporates some of their key ideas with her own strong opinions. Her shameless theft of concepts from Pollan's books -- twisted to her own means -- lead me to make only one recommendation: Read Omnivore's Dilemma. It's a far superior book when compared to Planck's book or any others on the shelf.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Refreshing Outlook on Food
Comment: This book is a real eye opener! Planck provides information on diet and backs it up with scientific evidence in a readable fashion. I thouroughly enjoyed this book and it has definitely changed the way I look at what I am eating.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Comment: An eye opening book with a perspective that some may not immediately gravitate to.
Basically, to me, the general concept of moderation applies to all things, whether diet or exercise among the many things we all deal with and this book brings these points home.
Over the years industry and science has provided great strides in the production of food, yet at the same time have also bought other things that have a negative affect on our bodies.
Though I feel some thingss are off in this book or lacking, the general concepts of how we eat (and really more importantly what we eat) shines through. Having tried to be careful it is nice to know that things I may want from time to time will not be detrimental, with the understanding that a bit of control is always needed - I will not find myself eating cheeseburgers 5 times a day, but wil not beat myself up when I find myself wanting certain things from time to time.
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