So I told you all that I was reading journalist Michael Pollan's book "Food Rules - An Eater's Manual" and was hoping to share some things I learned. Basically this little book has three sections.
Part I - What should I eat? (Eat Food)
Part II - What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly Plants)
Part III - How should I eat? (Not too much)
Pretty straight forward eh? Which is good in a world where fad diets and low fat, low carb, low gluten, no dairy, etc, etc, etc, etc, run rampant. It can be confusing to know where to even begin when you want to reasses what you're eating, what you should be eating, how much you should be eating. Who do you listen to? A good idea when you want to get facts is to visit a registered dietician. These people went to school to learn all about the body and food and the relationship between these two lovebirds. They're not trying to get you to buy their product. They're medical professionals and always a reliable source of good info.
However, there's nothing wrong with doing a little research on your own. I think a huge problem with people making poor diet choices is a lack of understanding what the food does in your body. For instance, a lot of people consider diet pop a good choice. No calories! But what about what the chemicals do once they're in your body? What about NutraSweet and Aspartame? Do you know? Well you should. Understanding is key to making good decisions. You must educate yourself. It's your body, therefore your responsibility.
Ok.. So there are 64 rules in this book.. I'll share a couple good ones with you and recommend you check out the book for yourself :) It retails for $11.00, not bad!
1. Eat FOOD. not foodlike substances. aka ultra processed substances with chemical additives. Pollan calls these 'edible foodlike substances'
5. Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetner) listed among the top 3 ingredients. Labels list ingredients by weight, and any product with more sugar than all the rest of the ingredients has too much sugar. However sugar is a tricky little thing these days.. thanks for food science it goes by a million different names. For example: beet sugar, barley malt, brown rice syrup, corn sweetner,cane juice, dextrin, dextrose, sucrose, glucose.. ETC ETC ETC. familiarize yourself with sugar and all it's names. Sugar is sugar, no matter what it calls itself. And as for it's tricky cousin noncaloric sweetners (think aspartame or Splenda) research doesn't support that these artificial sweetners lead to weight lose. Instead they seem to stimulate a craving for more sweet.
10. Avoid food pretending to be something it's not. Think 'I can't believe it's not butter' Making nonfat cream cheese involves neither cream nor cheese, but rather a ton of processing and chemicals. STAY AWAY.
12. Shop the perimeter of supermarkets and avoid the middle aisles. Most markets are set up the same.. with fresh foods like produce meat fish dairy etc. on the perimeter and foodlike substances in the middle. Shopping the perimeter will leave you with more healthful things in your cart.
20. It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.
22. Be an omnivore, but eat mostly plants.
25. Eat your colors. The colors of many vegetables reflect the different antioxidant phytochemicals they contain. Many of these chems help protect against chronic diseases, but each in a different way so your best bet is to eat your colors.
27. Eat animals that have themselves eaten well.
34. Sweeten and salt your food yourself. Cereals to Soup food that has been prepared by a corporation contains way more salt and sugar than any human - even sugar crazy kids - would add themselves. By sweetening and salting yourself, you'll consume wayyy less sugar and salt that you would have otherwise.
36. Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk. Such items are highly processed and FULL of refined carbohydrates and chemical additives.
47. Eat when you're hungry, not when you're bored.
49. Eat slowly
52. Buy smaller plates and glasses.
Man, that was tough to only pick out a couple of rules to share. This little book really is a great resource and perfect for people who want to start learning about making healthier food choices. Check it out!
Works Cited :
Pollan, Michael. Food Rules An Eater’s Manual. New York City: Penguin Group, 2009.
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