What we're reading: Food Rules

-By Lisa

Thanks to Swap.com I received this lovely slim volume in the mail recently.

Of course, I have read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and Second Nature: A Gardener's Education and love the in-depth, well-researched and important information. In this book, Pollan boils down his knowledge to the essentials. It's like a finely reduced sauce; a condensed, rich, yummy read that I inhaled in less than an hour. But the information I gleaned has endured.

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual is broken down into three sections:

1. What should I eat? 
2. What kind of food should I eat? 
3. How should I eat?

The answers are pretty straightforward:

1. Eat food
2. Mostly plants
3. Not too much

The remainder of the book details ways to stick to those rules in the form of quick, catchy one-liners. A few memorable ones for me:

"The whiter the bread, the sooner you will be dead."

“Eat all the junk you want as long as you cook it yourself.”

“If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.”

“Avoid foods you see advertised on television.”

This book doesn’t contain anything that is revolutionary territory for Pollan fans. Sure, it’s interesting to know about William Prout and his discovery of macronutrients in the early nineteenth century, and you sound smart spouting the properties of the principal constituents of protein, fat and carbohydrates -- but sometimes you just want to get down to the brass tacks. When I'm standing around, wondering what I should be eating, I find it more helpful to remember the little sayings from Food Rules. All due respect to Mr. Prout. 

Some have critized Pollan, saying he is dumbing down nutrition in order to spoon-feed the masses. I figure if we are spoon feeding this kind of information - instead of a Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzard – it’s a step in the right direction.

For more from Lisa, check out www.justherejustnow.com