Title Food Rules

Author Michael Pollan

Year Published 2011

Kind of Book Nutrition/Health

How strongly I recommend it 10/10 

My Impressions  This book contains a distillation of wisdom on what food to eat in the form of several aphorisms, sayings, and directives. It is split into three sections (Eat real food, mostly plants, not too much).

Date Read circa 2015

What question is the author trying to answer?

Practical Takeaways

  • Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

  • Eat real food (not processed food)

  • Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food

  • Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry (eg.Xanthan gum)

  • Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup

  • Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients

  • Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients

  • Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce

  • Avoid food products that make health claims

  • Avoid food products with the wordoid "lite" or the terms "low-fat" or "nonfat" in their names

  • Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not (artificial sweeteners, mock meat, margarine)

  • Avoid foods you see advertised on television

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

  • Eat only foods that will eventually rot

  • Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature

  • Go to farmer's markets

  • Buy your snacks at the farmers market

  • Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans

  • Don't ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap

  • If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't

  • It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car

  • It's not food if it's called the same name in every language (Big Mac, Cheetos, Pringles)

  • Eat Mostly Plants

  • Eat lots of leafy vegetables

  • Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food

  • Eating what stands on one leg (plants) is better than eating what stands on two legs (fowl) which is better than eating what stands on four legs (cow, pic etc)

  • Eat your colors//eat across the rainbow of colors

  • "Drink the spinach water" ie. Drink the water in which vegetables have been cooked

  • Eat animals that have themselves eaten well

  • If you have the space, buy a freezer

  • Eat like an omnivore ie. Eat a large variety of plant species

  • Eat well-grown food from healthy soil

  • Eat wild foods when you can

  • Don't overlook the oily little fishes

  • Avoid big fish at the top of the food chain

  • Eat fermented foods

  • Sweeten and salt your food yourself

  • Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature

  • Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk

  • Don't eat white bread, white rice or white noodles

  • Don't eat white flour

  • Avoid vegetable and peanut oils

  • Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself

  • Be the kind of person who takes supplements-then skip the supplements ie. Get your nutrition from food not from supplements

  • Eat more like the French, Japanese, Italians, or the Greeks

  • Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism

  • Have a glass of wine with dinner

  • Don't binge drink

  • Don't eat Too Much

  • Pay more, eat less

  • Stop eating before you're full // Japanese saying

  • Eat when you're hungry, not when you are bored //or trying to escape unpleasant emotions

  • Eat slowly

  • Eat a small amount of dessert mindfully//Remember that each bite of food will taste less good

  • Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it

  • Eat on small plates

  • Drink out of small glasses

  • Serve a proper portion and don't go back for seconds //Don't eat chips out of the bag. Give yourself a portion ahead of time.

  • Eat "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper."

  • Eat meals //limit your snacking.

  • Limit your snacks to fruits, vegetables, and nuts

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

  • Do all your eating at a table

  • Try not to eat alone

  • Treat treats as treats // special treats once and a while. hedonic adaptation

  • Leave something on your plate

  • Plant a vegetable garden if you have the space, a window box if you don't

  • Cook

  • Break the rules once in a while