One of the first books that really got me thinking about what I eat and how I eat it was Micahel Pollan’s In Defense of Food. His mantra for this book was simple-Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants. Michael doesn’t care about Carbs or Fats-he cares about the chemical and the artificial hiding in plain sight pretending to be food. The villain in his stories is The Western Diet-lots of processed food, lots of the holy trinity of fat, salt, and sugar, and not too many vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Food Rules contain a list of 64 guidelines for how best, in Michael’s opinion, to eat. In the introduction Michael Pollan makes the case that Gary (Why We Get Fat) Taubes didn’t make, that the Western Diet is so staunchly defended because it is so very profitable. I also like the idea of a vast conspiracy to pervert our entire notion of what food is and how it should be eaten.
The Food Rules all make good, solid common sense. Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does. Leave something on your plate. Most of the little rules are accompanied by a line or two on why this is a good idea and how it will improve your life. Some of the rules just stand on their own, as if Thomas Jefferson wrote them to be self-evident.
I like most of the rules, but routinely break a lot of them. Avoid foods you see advertised on television.-like most Americans, I’m a sucker for a great commercial. If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.-I eat a lot more plants than I used to, but I still like corn chips and candy bars. Be the kind of person who takes supplements—then skip the supplements.-I love my supplements and can hardly imagine living without them. Eat slowly.-I tend to wolf down my food as quickly as possible, I always have.
Food Rules, of course, are Self Control Rules. When I grew up dear old Mom controled what I ate, both in quality and quanity. She was an old fashioned gal who liked that whole Meat and Two Veg thing-but we always had sodas, though we did go through a pretty heavy milk rotation at one time. She liked potatoes, corn, green beans, pinto beans, rice, breads, ice creams, and a good solid assortment of Hostess snack foods. When I was in High School I was 6’3′ and weighted about 165 pounds. I was really thin and I spend a good deal of time walking around hungry as well. I ate a lot of candy and drank a lot of sodas. This was bad for my teeth but didn’t seem to affect my weight much. My nephew grew up with my much more lazy sister-who didn’t care about Meat and Two Veg, nutrition, or well, much of anything. By the time my nephew was in his teens, he was obese and he has maintained a high evel of body fat ever since. I’m sure that he would find it impossible to apply the Food Rules, as they constitute an entirely different world view from the one he has spent his entire live with.
I was out to lunch with The Wife and her family recently. The Wife’s sister has always been thin, like super model on a diet thin. But she has had two kids and seems to be healthy enough. The rest us, with the exception of the two kids, could stand to loose a few pounds. The Wife’s Sister ordered a large salad while the rest of us ordered platters of carbs and starches. The Wife and I did take about half of our meals home to have for dinner. I thought about ordering the salad myself, and if it had been a couple of weeks ago I would have ordered one. I ordered a shrimp dish that was very similar to one that I had cooked at the start of the Six Week UltraMind Solution.
I’m sure that Michael Pollan would have gone for the salad, and a small one at that.
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
