New 'Food Rules': 64 Easy Steps to Better Health

[katty]

more:
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/145012/michael_pollan%27s_new_%27food_rules%27%3A_64_easy_steps_to_better_health

By Michael Pollan, AlterNet. Posted January 11, 2010.

Pollan's new book is a set of straightforward, memorable, everyday rules for eating that aim to nudge people onto a healthier and happier path.

The idea for this book came from a doctor--a couple of them, as a matter of fact. They had read my last book, "In Defense of Food", which ended with a handful of tips for eating well: simple ways to navigate the treacherous landscape of modern food and the often-confusing science of nutrition. "What I would love is a pamphlet I could hand to my patients with some rules for eating wisely," they would say. "I don't have time for the big nutrition lecture and, anyway, they really don't need to know what an antioxidant is in order to eat wisely." Another doctor, a transplant cardiologist, wrote to say "you can't imagine what I see on the insides of people these days wrecked by eating food products instead of food." So rather than leaving his heart patients with yet another prescription or lecture on cholesterol, he gives them a simple recipe for roasting a chicken, and getting three wholesome meals out of it -- a very different way of thinking about health.

Make no mistake: our health care crisis is in large part a crisis of the American diet -- roughly three quarters of the two-trillion plus we spend on health care in this country goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which can be prevented by a change in lifestyle, especially diet.

[cutlassmama]

1. Wonder how much it costs?

[AspenRose]

2. Around 10-12 dollars

It's the thumbnail version of Omnivore's Dilemma

[iris27]

3. How does "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" become

64 steps?

[AspenRose]

4. Use bigger type?

:-)

[dana_b]

11. that was his last book

;)

[bullwinkle428]

12. "#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't."

:D

[CTD]

6. $5.50 at Amazon.com

Michael Pollan is one of the good guys. We're going to buy a bunch of copies of this book and gift them to family members who might, um, benefit from it.

[pitohui]

14. giving "you need to improve yourself" books as gifts is cruel and passive aggressive

if you buy a book to help yourself change your own diet, fine

if you buy it and give it around to family members -- it's just a cruel way of calling your family out as a bunch of fat slobs

i strongly advise you to think twice about giving the "gift" of self-improvement, it's never a kind thing to do

[csziggy]

5. My favorite: "#36 Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk."

Yeah - I want to eat it, not paint with it!

I've been eating fewer processed foods and cooking mostly fresh stuff. More vegetables, more whole grain, less pasta and much less meat. Losing weight slowly but steadily without changing anything else - and I feel better.

The downside - more time planning, preparing and cooking. But since I am not working I have that time and it is cheaper than buying processed crap.

[tonysam]

7. Another crackpot article that needs to be in the vegan forum.

Pollan is full of shit.

[lazarus]

9. he eats meat

he said so in an interview last week (Colbert).

How is this crackpot?

[dana_b]

10. really?!

have you read any of his books? The biggest thing he pushes is to eat unprocessed foods. How is that "full of shit"?

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Eating non processed foods is crap exactly how?

Waiting....

waiting....

For a long time I fear.

[LeftyMom]

15. Pollan is a happy meat douchebag and we don't want him. Thanks.

[ThomCat]

16. What do you see in that article that makes him a crackpot?

:shrug:

It seems like intelligent advice to me.

I don't think he goes far enough. If he advised people to become vegetarians/vegans, then I think he'd make a much better point, but I'm sure you'd really be calling him names.

But he's just telling people not to stuff shit in their mouths without paying attention. That is hardly radical.

[glitch]

8. K & R for Michael Pollan, who actually bothers to do the research. nt

[SheilaT]

17. I likewise wonder how

you go from "Eat real food, mostly plants, and not too much" becomes 64 rules. And 64 rules does not strike me as very simple.