Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. So goes the motto of Michael Pollan’s latest book, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” which he spoke about to a packed Kresge Auditorium last night.

Pollan, a journalism professor at UC-Berkeley and author of the best-selling book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” spoke about America’s problem with food, offering guidelines about how to decide what to eat. The take-home message: eat whole foods rather than highly processed “edible food-like substances,” learn to eat in moderation and focus less on marketed health claims when deciding what to eat.

“It’s kind of astounding that you can write a best-selling book defending food and meals,” Pollan said in his lecture, part of the series on The Ethics of Food and the Environment. “But we have gotten to where we can no longer eat on our own: we have professionalized it.”

Pollan met with representatives from Stanford Dining in a public panel earlier in the day to discuss ways to make the dining service healthier and more sustainable. Sustainability is a main priority of Stanford Dining, and Pollan charged Stanford with the mission of being a model program for other universities.

“Stanford can be one of the leaders if they can show that students support the program and that it is economical,” Pollan told The Daily in an interview yesterday. He explained that Stanford is in a good position to make food choice changes, noting that it is a wealthy institution in the center of California, with lots of buying opportunities.

Pollan argued that people have succumbed to what he terms “nutritionism,” an ideology that focuses on nutrients and not entire foods. Nutritionism tells them that food is only the sum of the key nutrients. This nutrient world is often divided into good and evil, with nutrients switching camps frequently — requiring scientists, dieticians and other experts to decipher it all.

Pollan has developed a list of 12 commandments to help eaters navigate the distinction between food and edible food-like substances, including, “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food” and “Don’t eat food that won’t eventually rot.”

Putting these guidelines into practice can get tricky, though, especially for institutions like Stanford Dining, which serves about 18,000 meals a day. Stanford Dining has a program that prioritizes sustainability and works to buy locally and ecologically when possible.

Pollan said that what he terms as “real food” is more expensive than industrial food, making affordability a challenge.

“You have to convince [people] that this is worth paying more for, that it is actually part of the educational mission,” he said. “There are important implications of what college dining services serve students: we are talking about establishing food habits that they will hold on to.”

Eric Montell, Acting Executive Director of Stanford Dining Services, outlined some of the steps Stanford Dining is taking to provide healthier, more sustainable food to students. Stanford Dining tries to work directly with farmers as much as possible, avoiding costly middlemen.

Sustainable Foods Coordinator Erin Gaines explained that student support is crucial for any new initiatives. Even if Stanford Dining prioritizes sustainability, it has to listen to student reactions.

“If we pulled all of the tomatoes in winter, students would complain,” she said, even though tomatoes are not in season in California during winter months.

Montell explained that the program has to bring students along, rather than leaving them behind.

“Are we here to force students to change their eating habit? To educate them?” he asked.

For students who are on meal plans and cannot voice their opinion with purchasing power, Pollan advised that they educate themselves about what is in season in their region and pressure their dining service to provide those foods.

“Ask lots of questions,” he told The Daily. “They help move the food service program in the right direction and show student support for the movement.”

Pollan recognized a “huge sense of befuddlement” about what to eat and stressed that right now we cannot rely on science or the government to tell us, though science, he said, is making progress in understanding the mechanics behind food and health.

“I think nutrition science is today where surgery was around 1650: promising, interesting to watch, but I’m going to wait to get on the table,” Pollan said last night, explaining that we still do not completely understand what makes foods healthy or how they change as they go through the human digestive system. “We don’t know what is going on deep in the soul of a carrot.”