In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

I just finished reading the above mentioned book. Excellent, enlightening, and interesting. The short answer is, as author Michael Pollan says, Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pretty sound advice that has kept the human race alive for a few million years.

One distinction of note he makes is between actual food and food-like substances. Food-like substances are those foods you generally find in the center of the grocery store, while actual food is more likely to be found in the periphery (i.e. produce, milk, cheese, meats). He delves into the "religion" of nutritionism, the belief that food is only a collection of nutrients/vitamins/carbs/fats/proteins. He supports the idea that food is more than a sum of its parts.

I like his guidelines for selecting food, so I'm going to list them here, as much for my own reference as for anyone else's benefit (parentheticals are my additions/clarifications:

Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronouncabeable, C) more than five in number, or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup.

Avoid food products that make health claims

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

Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.

Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

You are what what you eat eats too. (Yep, that's typed correctly. Read it again if necessary! In other words, if the cow you ate was fed junk calories, you're eating junk calories.)

If you have the space, buy a freezer. (Especially if you eat meat--find a good grass fed source and stock up.)

Eat like an omnivore. (Eat a variety of foods. You are more likely to cover your nutritional needs this way.

Eat well-grown food from healthy soils. (For example, a carrot grown today is generally less nutritious than one grown 50 years ago because the fertilizers and pesticides do not provide the same level of nutrition in the soil.)

Eat wild foods when you can.

Be the kind of person who takes supplements. (He says that until you are middle aged, most people shouldn't need supplements, but as we age it is helpful.)

Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks. (Nearly all traditional diets are healthy because they are less refined--refined sugars & flours are two of the main culprits of our Western diet.)

Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.

Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet. (So the new "superfood" isn't likely to be that super. Better to eat a healthful variety.)

Pay more, eat less. (Buy better grown food. Good food, i.e. fruits/veggies/etc, is more expensive than crap food, but it's better for you.)

Eat meals. (Put more energy/time into meal preparation and eat fewer snacks.)

Do all your eating at a table. No, a desk is not a table.

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

Try not to eat alone.

Consult your gut. (Don't judge your fullness by how much is left on your plate or in the bag. Pay attention to your own level of fullness. It may take some effort to figure this out, as we don't generally pay attention in our culture to internal cues.)

Eat slowly. (Meaning deliberately.)

Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

So there you have it. :o) Pretty sound ideas, methinks.