Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual presents guidelines for healthy eating. You wouldn’t think that as a developed nation that we would need guidelines how to eat, but as our standard American diet (SAD – how’s that for an appropriate acronym) has led us high levels of obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. 

Part of the problem is that healthy eating can be a confusing landscape and unfortunately, confusion adds to the financial incentives of those involved.  Pollan points out that the more you process food, the more profitable it becomes. The healthcare industry makes more money treating chronic diseases rather than preventing them. The upshot is we ignore the real problem by treating the symptoms rather than addressing the underlying causes. Pollan explains that this uncertainty has become a marketing ploy that allows food corporations to market their food as healthy according to the results of the latest study of a nutritional scientist.

Pollan says everything he’s learned about food and health can be summed up in seven words: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” He’s distilled his research into 64 rules and divided the book up into three sections:

1) Part I: What should I eat? (Eat Food)
2) Part II: What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly plants)
3) Part III: How should I eat? (Not too much)

Pollan provides a brief commentary for each of the rules. Here are the rules to whet your appetite:

1. Eat food 

2. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food 

3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry 

4. Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup 

5. Avoid food products that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients 

6. Avoid food products that have more than 5 ingredients 

7. Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce 

8. Avoid food products that make health claims 

9. Avoid food products with the word “lite” or the terms “low fat” or “nonfat” in their names 

10. Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not 

11. Avoid foods you see advertised on television 

12. Get out of the supermarket whenever you can (to buy food) 

13. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle 

14. Eat only foods that will eventually rot 

15. Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature 

16. Go food shopping every week 

17. Buy your snacks at the farmers market 

18. Eat Close to the Earth 

19. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans 

20. Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap 

21. If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t. 

22. It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car 

23. It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language (Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles) 

24. When you eat real food, you don’t need roles 

25. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves 

26. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food 

27. 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]. 

28. Eat your colors 

29. Drink the spinach water 

30. Eat animals that have themselves eaten well 

31. If you have space, buy a freezer 

32. Eat like an omnivore (great diversity of species) 

33. Eat well-grown food from healthy soil 

34. Eat wild foods when you can 

35. Don’t overlook the oily little fishes 

36. Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacterial or fungi 

37. Sweeten and salt your food yourself 

38. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature 

39. Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk 

40. Make water your beverage of choice 

41. Milk is a food, not a beverage 

42. “The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead” 

43. Avoid sugary and starchy foods if you’re concerned about weight 

44. Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone ground 

45. Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself 

46. Love your spices 

47. Be the kind of person who takes supplements – then skip the supplements 

48. Eat more lie the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. 

49. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism 

50. Avoid ingredients that lie to your body (artificial sweeteners and flavorings, starches, MMSG, texturizers) 

51. Enjoy drinks that have been caffeinated by nature not food science (coffee, tea) 

52. Have a glass of wine with dinner 

53. Pay more, eat less 

54. Eat less 

55. Stop eating before you’re full 

56. Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored 

57. If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re probably not hungry 

58. It’s okay to be a little hungry 

59. Don’t let yourself get too hungry 

60. Consult your gut (slow down and pay attention what your body is telling you) 

61. Serve the vegetables first 

62. Eat slowly (enough to savor your food; you’ll need less of it to be satisfied) 

63. “The banquet is in the first bite” 

64. Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it 

65. Give some thought to where your food comes from 

66. Don’t become a short order cook 

67. Buy smaller plates and glasses 

68. Serve a proper portion and don’t go back for seconds 

69. Order the small (in a restaurant) 

70. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper 

71. Eat meals (snacking less) 

72. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods 

73. Do all your eating at a table 

74. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does 

75. “No labels on the table” (keep logos and food packaging off the dinner table) 

76. Place a bouquet of flowers on the table and everything will taste twice as good 

77. Leave something on your plate 

78. Eat with other people whenever you can 

79. Treat treats as treats 

80. Compost 

81. Plant a vegetable garden if you have space, a window box if you don’t 

82. Cook 

83. Break the rules once in a while

The bottom line is that we must learn to eat food. This means real food — vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and sparingly fish and meat. I highly recommend this short and practical book.

Rick

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

Follow me on twitter:  rickhiggins5

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