Food Rules: A Tiny Book that Speaks Volumes

If you've never read Michael Pollan's book "Food Rules," than you're missing out! One of the best-selling-food-guru authors and even featured on Oprah--enough said for some women--this man has a lot of important statements to say on food and (maybe even more importantly) how society and corporations have swayed our perception on food. An easy beach read (literally--you can read the whole book in an hour if you're focused!), Pollan lays out his "food rules" in three interesting parts: What to eat, the kinds of foods to eat, and how much you should actually be eating. With so many great points in this book, I'm going to give you the cliff notes version on what stuck with me the most from each section. However, this is one of those books that is inexpensive and fun to read, so if you have $10 and the time to run over to Borders--grab it! :) Part I: What should I eat? Answer: Eat Food. "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." Foods are processed in ways specifically designed to get us to buy and eat more by pushing our buttons--our preference for sweetness, fat and salt. These tastes are difficult to find in nature, but cheap and easy for the food scientists to create! The result: processed foods. The great-grandmother rule will help keep most of these items out of your cart...(*If your great-granny wasn't a cook, imagine someone else's great-grandmother who knows what real food looks like!) "Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top 3 ingredients." Complicating matters even more, there are now 40 types of sugar used in processed food! Ahhhh!! This includes high-fructose corn syrup, barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetener, dextrin, dextrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, turbinado sugar, etc., etc. SUGAR IS SUGAR people--stay away from it if you can! "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle." For the most part, supermarkets are all constructed the same way: fresh foods such as produce, meat, fish and dairy outline the walls of the store, while the processed foods dominate the center aisles. If you keep to the edges of the store, most likely you'll end up with real food in your cart. "Eat only foods that will eventually rot." When food goes bad it means that fungi and bacteria and insects and rodents got to it first. They want the nutrients and calories too! Food processing is a way to extend the shelf life of food by protecting it from these little pests by making it less appealing to them. The more processed food is, the longer the shelf life and the less nutrients it typically has. Real food is alive--and therefore it should eventually die! (*An exception to this would be honey, which has a shelf life measured in centuries!) "If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't." Enough said. Part II: What Kind of food should I eat? Answer: Mostly Plants. "Eating what stands on one leg (mushrooms and plant foods) is better than eating what stands on two legs (fowl), which is better than eating what stands on four legs (cows, pigs and other mammals)." This is a great Chinese proverb that offers a good summary of traditional wisdom regarding the healthfulness of different kinds of food. However, it does leave out the very healthful and entirely legless fish! "Eat animals that have themselves eaten well." The diet of animals strongly influences the nutritional quality of food we get from them, whether it be meat, milk or eggs. The food from animals who are grass-fed contain much healthier types of fats (more omega-3s, less omega-6s) and have higher levels of vitamins and antioxidants, compared to those who are not. If you can, try buying your meats, eggs and dairy products from grass-fed animals labeled organic. They're worth paying the premium for. "Sweeten and salt your food yourself." Food and beverages that have been prepared by corporations contain far higher levels of salt and sugar than any ordinary human would ever add--even a child! By adding flavor yourself, you'll consume A FRACTION of the sugar and salt as you would if someone else were to prepare it! That can make a big difference in your waistline. "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." These cereals are highly processed and full of chemical additives and refined carbs. Sorry kids, fruity pebbles and coco puffs are out! "Have a glass of wine with dinner." (This might be my favorite page of the whole book!!) Being an integral part of the French and Mediterranean diet, there's evidence that people who drink moderately and regularly live longer and have less cases of heart disease than those who do not. Also, the health benefits may depend on the drinking pattern: drinking a little bit every day is better than drinking a lot on the weekends, and drinking with food is better than drinking without it. Most experts recommend no more than 2 drinks a day for men and one for women. Part III: How should I eat? Answer: Not Too Much. "Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored." Food is a costly antidepressant. For so many of us, we eat out of boredom, comfort, for entertainment, or to reward ourselves. In other words, we rarely eat when we're actually hungry! Try to be aware of WHY you're eating, and ask yourself if you're really hungry before you continue to pick at food... "Buy smaller plates and glasses." We tend to eat up to 30 percent more when food is in front of us. Food marketers know this, which is why portions are always supersized (so we end up buying more), and unfortunately finishing what we didn't want to keep eating in the first place. NOT something we want to carry over to our own kitchens! One researcher found that people who simply swapped out their 12-inch dinner plates for 10-inch plates reduced their food consumption by 22 percent! Now that's a fact worth buying new dishes for! :) "Treat treats as treats." Sounds simple, right? There is nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as EVERY DAY isn't a special occasion! Indulgences such as fried chicken, french fries, pizza, cookies or cupcakes are fine every once in a while--but the trick is to MAKE THEM YOURSELF. The amount of work involved of making these foods keeps the frequency of indulgence in check. These indulgent foods offer some of the great pleasures in life, so we shouldn't deprive ourselves, but the sense of "occasion" needs to be restored. Another idea to limit such foods is to save them for weekends or only special events. "Some people follow a so-called 'S policy: no snacks, no seconds, no sweets--except in the days that start with an S.'" "Cook." (One rule I truly, whole-heartedly believe in and preach!) I've talked about this enough, but cooking really does save on waistline expansion. Unless you can hire a private chef, allowing someone else to cook every meal for you means loosing control of your life. Cooking is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and processors, and to guarantee you're eating real food and not edible food-like substances. Simple point: Learn how to cook. "Break the rules once in a while." Obsessing over food rules is going to drive you mad! Its no good for your happiness, let alone your health. Over the past few decades, people have been dieting and worrying too much over nutrition guidelines, which ironically has only led us to an unhealthier country. There will be occasions you want to throw these "food rules" out the window--that's fine! Just remember its the every day habits that govern your eating on a typical day. "'All things in moderation,' is often said, but we should never forget the wise addendum, sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde: 'Including moderation.'" :)