Michael Pollan’s Food Rules – A Review

This little book is an excellent beginner’s guide to food. If you’ve been overweight or on a diet for years, you’ve probably determined that there’s no instant cure for what you’ve been doing for years. What Pollan does is give you quick rules for eating that will take you as far, if not further, than many diets. Muffin tops and spare tires might look trendy, but they’re neither very attractive nor healthy. If you have them now in your 20s or 30s, it becomes even harder to lose them as you get older. So, no time to read this little book to get you started.

A curious journalist, Pollan has written several books on food, including In defense of food, The omnivore’s dilemma And Cooked. Try looking at one at a local library and around this time next year you might get a call telling you to pick it up or download it. This little book is perhaps the only thing that is available for free by this author and it is a good start.

Nutrition is a relatively new science. Food companies want you to be their guinea pigs and try their new foods that are bound to be “healthy” in one way or another. By focusing on one element, vitamin or nutrient at a time, they ignore other harmful ingredients and therefore perpetuate confusion and ill health. So the food companies and the medical community are making a fortune at your expense. The only certain thing is that by eating highly processed foods, you will most likely be obese, diabetic, and prone to heart disease and cancer. This is the result of the American diet.

Pollan sums it all up with “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” But he gives you 64 rules to guide you to that conclusion. One rule in particular that supports it is rule 12 “Buy the fringes of the supermarket and stay out of the middle”. It’s another way of saying to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fish and dairy products and avoid processed foods.

So before you go on a diet, write down what you’re currently eating, follow Pollan’s Rules, and see if it makes a difference. If you think eating healthy might cost a little more, it’s a lot less than what you’ll be paying the medical community if you don’t change anything.