Earlier quoted context omitted.
"2) If you eat that orange, are you eating something that's "all natural"? 3) If you squeeze that orange, and drink its juice, is it still "all natural"?" The In Defense of Food argument is not so much about whether or not the food is still "natural" at that point. The point is you are throwing out much of the orange, and there is probably stuff in the part you are throwing away that is good for you. Pollan talks abo…
Not to entirely disagree with you but Or you can just eat the actual plants and animals and be done with it. You don't just grab a potato out of the ground and eat it whole. Or jump out into a field of cattle with a fork and knife ready to go. You can do that with some foods, not so much with others. If the metric is "you must be able to eat it right out of the wild with 0 processing" you're going to eat a lot of raw…
What Pollan actually advocates is eating a traditional diet that has been refined over centuries. He says that which one you pick doesn't matter that much.
The traditional diets of people living around the Mediterranean and people living near the Arctic circle have nothing in common, but according to Pollan, either will give you better health outcomes than a normal Western diet.
If people have been eating a certain way over a long period of time, they have probably learned to avoid the stuff that will kill or injure you, and probably have discovered foods that nutritionally complement each other, as well. (He gave examples of such complementary foods in traditional diets, which I can't remember right now.)