Food Rules
Author: Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is a health food specialist and a Professor at UC Berkeley (which is cool). He has written a few books about healthy eating and many of them have been NY Times best-sellers. My mom introduced his books to me and I read “Food Rules” on my flight to Pittsburgh. It’s a really quick read, really more of a list of advice for eating properly, and while I think it is really hard to follow all of his rules, they are ultimately good things to keep in mind when you’re buying groceries and eating.
Pollan’s mantra is: “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” The book is divided into three sections corresponding to each of these sentences, and provides a bunch of rules that help clarify the statements. The first section is filled with rules about eating real food, things without artificial additives and whatnot. His advice ranges from things like don’t buy foods with ingredients you can’t pronounce or with more than 5 ingredients, to shop at the borders of the grocery store (because that’s were the natural stuff usually is. The second section instructs you to eat mostly plants or to make your meals predominantly vegetable-like, cut down on meat intake, and snack on fruits rather than cookies or junk food. In the last section, Pollan gives advice on how to eat: eat lots of small meals, stop eating before you’re full, etc.
I pretty much agree with all of the rules, but at the same time, I find it really hard to follow all of them. I would have to invest a lot more of my time into cooking and buying groceries, in addition to increasing my spending on groceries (to buy organic etc.). As a busy grad student, I think it’s hard to follow all of the rules, but they are definitely something to keep in mind.
Tags: book reviews
September 4th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Hey Akshay,
I just finished reading this book minutes ago. I had already thought about it, but the book has inspired me to make some of my own rules.
Why do you think you’d have to spend more time buying groceries to follow his advice?
Maybe grad students are among the many poor people who can’t afford to buy good food, but I think for most people, they think of price first, convenience second, and all the really important stuff gets lost.
September 5th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
The main reason I’d have to spend more time is the vegetables go bad pretty quickly. Coupled with the fact that I don’t have a car, the overhead of going to the grocery store makes it impractical for me to shop in shorter, more-frequent trips. I do end up following a lot of them, but I find that I have to go to the grocery store at least once a week. If i get really busy then I’m not sure if I’ll be able tod o that.
June 23rd, 2011 at 1:35 pm
[...] wrote last year about another Michael Pollan book called “Food Rules” and as it turns out that book is more or less a condensed version of “In Defense of [...]