Paleo should NOT be like vegetarians and have itself become such a mono-sighted dogma. Pollen is mostly about clean natural sources of food- thats Paleo. He also has no problem with hunting and gathering- thats paleo, too. He sees the evil in grains like Corn. I disagree with some things he says but I also disagree with the Weston Price folks too. Lets not be so limited in our approach to Paleo - that can not be good in the long run.

This thread is old, but I thought I'd respond anyway. As someone who has actually read "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan, I'm very surprised by some of the comments I'm seeing here. Michael Pollan, a "lipophobe"? It's because of his book I learned for the first time that saturated fat is not the devil. He does a fantastic job of smashing conventional wisdom on sat fat to pieces and is critical of medical and government advice that demonizes sat fat.

I find his "eat mostly plants" advice to contradict some of the evidence he himself mentions in the book, but I think I read in an interview that he gives this advice because the meat most people eat in this country is from grain- (and god knows what else) fed animals.

Regarding the grain issue, I don't think Pollan claims to know 100% what you should and should not eat. He is coming from a completely different perspective from say, those heavily promoting the paleo diet, government food intake guidelines, fad diets, etc. He believes it's too simplistic to reduce food to the "nutrient" debate and goes by what appears to have worked well for very healthy populations in the past and the present. In sum, he believes the common thread with all of them is that they ate whole foods, whether that's the Masai tribe of Kenya, whom he says subsist on cow meat, cow milk and cow blood (with hardly or no fruits and vegetables), to traditional Inuit populations whose diet he claimed is up to 70% saturated fat, to the 7th Day Adventists, who eat a largely vegetarian and whole grain-based diet.

You would think the author of Botany of Desire would rethink his 'mostly plants' ideal when botany shows a lot of his beloved plants are filled with lectins, glutens, and other chemicals that interfere with the human body.

I agree with Pollan that a person should eat mostly plants. I understood that he meant them in the natural state: fruits and vegetables.

His point is agaist processed foods, not so much against meat consumption, as against poisoned agribusiness meat, which as has been discussed on this forum, is more dangerous than the agribusiness fruits and vegetables.

IMHO, he is doing a great job, and he and his followers should be wooed rather than shunned.

Sometime last year, I heard Pollan say on an NPR program that "Bread is good food." It's kind of hard to take him seriously now...

He shares a lot of the same concerns: no processed foods, no sugars or refined carbs, omega-three versus omega-six, etc.

So do raw vegans. Who cares what Pollan thinks?

I thought Omnivore's Dilemma was a wonderful book. People seem to think eat mostly plants means "don't ever eat meat". That's not what he's saying! He just thinks if you do, it needs to be grassfed/humane. The one thing that disappointed me about the book was his pro-grain stance, he argues that we have co-evolved with these grasses and the seeds are "highly nutritious". I disagree.

I don't see Pollan as a god by any means, but I am here because I first read Pollan. I don't fear saturated fat because of Pollan. I learned about Weston A. Price and opened my mind to the idea of ancestral health via Pollan. Whether that was his initial aim or not doesn't matter, because while imperfect, he spoke truth. I think the ancestral health community shares more in common with Pollan than not.

That said, if I'm going to preach to anyone about switching to a healthy diet, I'm going to first say switch to real food. I'm not going to preach the evils of grain or complain about anti-nutrients and autoimmune protocols. In my opinion, that's like trying to teach astrophysics to a third grade science class. First of all, that's too complicated, too soon. Second of all, they may not even need to get that advanced to go on and live a healthy life. Believe it or not, many people don't need to be strict paleo to be healthy and nourished.

I have no idea how I happened upon this thread but am trying to adopt a Paleo diet after following Pollan for a few years and finding it (the paleo diet) very impractical and depressing. I read all of these responses and feel much better about adopting a very modified paleo diet. Going to search for better meat where I live. I live in the country now and know it is here. No WholeFoods anywhere to shop. But animals grazing and tons of CSAs. I like what Michele had to say (above) even if it was a couple years ago.

fiberjean...look at uswellnessmeats.com for meat and other natural food selections.