This is my ongoing,11-week series about Michael Pollan’s book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.
The first 21 rules fall into a section called, “What Should I Eat? (Eat Food.).” This installment covers rules 13 through 15.
Rule 13: Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
Remember the urban legend that Twinkies will never rot? When I was in high school, the story went that you could nail a Twinkie to a roof and it would endure for years. I don’t know about that (what about precipitation? crows?) but if you are a fast food junkie, beware — check out this video about a desiccated Happy Meal for inspiration:
Or see Morgan Spurlock’s McDonald’s experiment:
Rule 14: Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture raw or growing in nature.
Another way to remember “Eat real food.” Pollan cites the ingredients in Twinkies or Pringles as a case in point. Alas, because I do like Pringles (although I can’t say the last time I ate them). But actually, Pringles ingredients are:
DRIED POTATOES, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN OIL, COTTONSEED OIL, SOYBEAN OIL, AND/OR SUNFLOWER OIL), RICE FLOUR, WHEAT STARCH, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT AND DEXTROSE.
I’ve seen worse, although those ingredients do include some partial ingredients.
Rule 15: Get out of the supermarket whenever you can.
Pollan suggests buying food at a farmer’s market, where there is no high-fructose corn syrup (assuming you avoid the booths of any unscrupulous bakers — at some of our farmer’s markets, there are more booths selling snacks, lunch, meat and baked goods than produce, but probably most of them aren’t using HFCS or partially hydrogenated oils). I can also assure you that no trans fats will grow in your garden, so plant something — after all, it’s almost spring!
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Comments ( 2 )
Ummmm.
Ummmm….
Oh.. my.
On one hand – thanks for posting this, thanks for sharing it. On the other… I will admit a mild desire to heave any and all fast food I might have ever ingested in my lifetime. I thought I was doing good since the celiac diagnosis – 10 and not a single stop at a fast food restaurant. But apparently, they could still be hanging around somewhere in there and there IS a slight “get it out get it out get it OUT” voice yelling in the back of my head.
Definitely something to seriously think about. Thanks?
Jenna added these pithy words on
Mar 16 10 at
2:05 pm
@Jenna – Ha! I hear you. Thus the cleanse industry.
But the main thing is to take inspiration to keep those chemicals (or more likely, from my layperson’s perspective, scary, scary fats, for fats are a preservative) from entering your body now.
Cheap Like Me added these pithy words on
Mar 16 10 at
2:23 pm
