Allyson | Week 4| Food Rules

As I shared a couple weeks ago, I love to read.  Over the past couple years I have begun to really enjoy nonfiction books and  I have come across Michael Pollan and his books on how people should eat.  Last year I purchased a couple of his books, read them lickitysplit, and now I want to share them with you over the course of this blog. 

Give me a few moments to briefly introduce you to one of my favorites: Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.  This book is divided into three sections, each with about 20 “rules” we should follow when eating.  (Prior to Section 1, Pollan introduces the concepts behind all these “rules” by citing a few food facts about the “western diet”, its detrimental effects on our society, and what other cultures’ healthy diets look like.)

The sections are: 

1) What should I eat? (Eat food.) This section distinguishes REAL food from all the processed crap that dominates our society.

2) What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly plants.) In this section, Pollan breaks down the different categories of REAL food and suggests what foods should mostly be eaten.

3) How should I eat? (Not too much.)  This section sets out rules for when and how much to eat.

This is a very short book that can be read while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, but is packed full of (what should be) commonsensical  rules for what, when, and how we should be eating.  Over the next several blogs I will share with you some of my favorite rules.  I urge you, though, to invest the time into reading this book, as it is an investment in your health.  (You won’t even need to invest money if you borrow it from your local library!)

Rule #2: Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother* wouldn’t recognize as food. 

Would your great-grandmother even recognize any of those packaged products in the grocery store as food?  What is meat doing in a can?  Why are you eating something out of box?  What’s that you’re squeezing out of a tube?  Most of the products in our grocery store are not REAL food.  They are “foodish” or food-like products. They are not REAL, whole foods that our great-grandmothers, or even grandmothers, would recognize as being edible.  I challenge you: If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, don’t eat it.

Rule #6: Avoid foods that have more than five (5) ingredients.  

Have you ever taken time to actually READ the ingredient labels on packaged foods? It can be astounding! So many foods have huge lists of foods and 90% of the ingredients can’t even be pronounced!  I truly try to stick to this rule and (when I buy prepackaged foods) I read almost all ingredient labels before ever buying a product.  Imagine my poor husband the night I decided to start living by this rule and we wanted cereal! You might think it’s impossible, but after some time searching we actually did find a few cereals that have five or fewer ingredients- and they are super tasty, too! 

I challenge you: next time you are at the store, look below the nutritional label and check out the ingredient list. Try to find (and buy) foods that have five or fewer ingredients. You might even find it to be a fun experience.  (If you share that competitive gene with me, you can compete with your shopping buddy to see who can find the most items on your grocery list with the fewest ingredients!)

*Speaking of grandmothers, I just have to give a special shout-out to mine! She called me over the weekend to tell me that I have inspired her to begin taking a line-dancing class and to join a Strong Women group.  (To think, I inspired her!  This is quite the turn of events as she has always been such an inspiration to me!) At one point she said, “…and I’m an old woman!”  So there-- if an “old woman” can get moving, so can you!