Food Rules

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual
By Michael Pollan
Penguin Books, 2009. 140 pgs. Nonfiction

This is a simple book with good ideas about eating. In the introduction the author boils down the question of how and what we should eat to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Food rules consists of 64 rules all fit within the framework of eating food, not too much, and mostly plants. Most rules are accompanied by a paragraph of explanation. One of the first rules is "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." This rules out quite a few of the items sitting on grocery store shelves. I think my favorite is "It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car."

This little book is packed with many simple rules to guide us in food decisions. No weighing, no measuring, no calorie counting--just implementing a handful of these rules will undoubtedly improve one's health.

SML