Those of you who haven’t read any of Michael Pollan’s writing really need to go out and get a copy of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” or “In Defense of Food”. It will forever change how you look at the modern food system and provide you with a road map for how to take back control of your eating and your health. Too much of our cooking has been outsourced to gigantic corporations that engineer food-like products in labs that can be cooked by opening a box, adding water or heated in the microwave. These corporations have a vested interest in making food that is fast, convenient, easy to make, and addictive but does not necessarily meet the nutritional needs of our bodies.
Pollan’s famous statement “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” concisely sums up much of his arguments about the agro-food industry.
He also has seven food rules that everyone should try to follow:
Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot (the only exception is stuff like honey)
Eat until you’re about 80% full.
Eat sitting down around a table with friends and family at regular meal times.
Don’t buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.
It’s time to learn to how to cook from scratch again and to involve your kids in grocery shopping and making healthy meal decisions. If you see preparing a meal as time well spent rather than a chore it really does go a long way to helping you live a healthy life. Who doesn’t want to be as healthy as they can be and feel good after eating a meal rather than sluggish and sick?