Movie Night: In Defense of Food

Join 18 Reasons for a fun and fascinating movie night! Popcorn included, beverages for sale. 

Based on Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, In Defense of Food is a two-hour special for public television that uncovers how incomplete science, vested political interests, and clever marketing campaigns have shaped America’s eating habits in ways that have made us less and less healthy. 

The film follow's Michael on a fascinating journey to answer the question: What should I eat to be healthy? Cutting through confusion and busting myths and misconceptions, In Defense of Food shows how common sense and old-fashioned wisdom can help us rediscover the pleasures of eating and avoid the chronic diseases so often associated with the modern diet.

Pollan's journey of discovery takes him from the plains of Tanzania, where one of the world's last remaining tribes of hunter-gatherers still eats the way our ancestors did, to Loma Linda, California, where a group of Seventh Day Adventist vegetarians live longer than almost anyone else on earth, and eventually to Paris, where the French diet, rooted in culture and tradition, proves surprisingly healthy. Along the way he shows how a combination of faulty nutrition science and deceptive marketing practices have encouraged us to replace real food with scientifically engineered "food-like substances." And he explains why the solution to our dietary woes is in fact remarkably simple: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.