In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
Published 2008 · 207 pages · 60,000 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Health & Medicine, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Travel & Food
How hard is In Defense of Food to read?
In Defense of Food scores 17 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Nutritional science terms. Clearly defined.
- Sentence structure: 25 out of 100
- Abstraction: 30 out of 100
- Critiques an ideology while staying concrete.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Nutritional science history and food industry analysis.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Direct thesis-driven argument.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- Food vs. nutrients as central opposition.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Wry about the absurdity of needing to defend food.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Clear prescriptions. Seven words say it all.
- Structural complexity: 18 out of 100
- Three parts: the age of nutritionism, the Western diet, getting over it.
How In Defense of Food is regarded
In Defense of Food holds a literary regard score of 48 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.