Book Review: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

Last week I read Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. It takes about an hour to read. It's 64 simple rules for healthy, smart eating, one rule per page. In the introduction, Pollan says, "I realized that the answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated question of what we should eat wasn't so complicated after all, and in fact could be boiled down to just seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He then breaks the book/rules into the following three categories:

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.)

Here are a few of my favorites:

Rule 9: Avoid food products with the wordoid "lite" or the terms "low-fat" or "nonfat" in their names.

"Since the low-fat campaign began in the late 1970s, Americans actually have been eating more than 500 additional calories per day, most of them in the form of refined carbohydrates like sugar."

Rule 39: Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

"... fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, & ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you're willing to prepare them, chances are good it won't be every day."

Rule 46: Stop eating before you're full.

"Ask yourself not, Am I full? but, Is my hunger gone? That moment will arrive several bites sooner."

Rule 47: Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.

"If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you're not hungry."

As I'm starting to run more & lose weight, I'm also eating less. I'm bad about coming home from work, sitting down in front of the TV & mindlessly snacking until dinner. I'm working on both that & the 'stop eating before you're full' thing. I'm trying to eat slower & less. It's a work in progress, but this book definitely drove the point home. Highly recommend it for anyone familiar with Michael Pollan &/or interested in eating better.