Food Rules – Book Review
Jeremy and I picked up the latest Michael Pollan book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual this weekend which we intend to pass onto his mom who showed an interest in it after watching Oprah. We took a quick peak at it the night we bought it, and by quick peak I mean we read the whole book out loud in about an hour while making dinner. If you haven’t heard already, it expands on the list of rules he originally published in In Defense of Food – eat food, mostly plants, not too much. There is a brief paragraph or two explanation of each rule following, and a total of 64 rules.
Our favorite rule was rule 57, “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.” And our favorite quote came from rule 8, “Avoid food products that make health claims,” with the quote, “Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about your health.” We are doing pretty well overall on the rules, the one we are going to try to do more of is rule 43, “Have a glass of wine with dinner” (the sacrifices we are willing to make for our health). Jeremy was particularly smug about the rules relating to eating slowly, because he is probably the world’s slowest eater, and has been teased a lot because of it. Rule 3 is “Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry,” as one example he lists xantham gum which we currently have an entire bag of in our pantry… I guess we are no ordinary humans. (We have xantham gum because it is used in gluten free baking often).
If you have read In Defense of Food, there isn’t any new information here, but if you are looking for a concise list of rules he thinks you should follow you’ll find it here. It is a pretty entertaining read, with some funny old sayings to help you remember what to do, and is also in paperback for $5.00 brand new.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 11:46 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I also caught this Oprah with Michael Pollan. It was very interesting and she also did a segment on Chipotle (and their use of organic meats and local produce). It seems like you all are way ahead of the trend!
February 4th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
But what if we eventually develop car fuel using very healthy veggies?! Rule 57 will fall apart!
I definitely need to eat more veggies, but I'm pretty good these days about rarely eating meat. But I wish I could eat slower!
February 4th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
We are going to surprise your mom with the books, so don't tell her!
Yea, she said it was pretty interesting and thought he made some good points.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
I guess he'll have to revise the book if that ever happens! So what do you eat if you don't eat veggies or meat Angie?
I know, I've been trying to eat slower the past couple of days but it has not been working…
February 4th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Read your post yesterday at lunch and I think it planted the idea of how good a glass of wine sounded, so I went home and had one with dinner
February 5th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I eat way too much processed food, bread, and cheese. And popcorn. Basically your diet when you lived in Dallas, only with fewer rice krispy treats.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Ya, I ate out a lot there, or ate granola bars mostly
Well you should start trying new veggies 
Just like Jacob!
February 8th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
The only thing Steph ate in Stillwater was twice baked potatoes or mac n cheese with the noodles stuck together!
February 9th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Ha ha, that is true
Can't eat either now I bet! I forgot about those twice baked potatoes we used to eat, they were tasty.