YOUR HEALTH:A rule book by food writer Michael Pollan, based on grandmothers' advice, common sense and science, is causing a stir in the US and is now available here
FOOD WRITER Michael Pollan has seven simple words of advice for people who want to eat healthily: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
But that would make for a very short book, so the author and New York Times Magazinecontributor has expanded those three sentences into 64 rules in his new book, Food Rules – An Eater's Manual, published in Ireland last week, but already a US bestseller since its release stateside earlier this year.
The rules are a mix of grandmothers’ advice, science and common sense from around the world. Rule 46 tells you to stop eating before you are full, but elaborates with advice from Germany (tie the sack before it gets completely full) and Japan (hara hachi bu – or stop eating when you are 80 per cent full).
When the French want to convey they are hungry, they say: “J’ai faim” – I have hunger – and when they are finished they say, “Je n’ai plus faim” – I have no more hunger.
“This is a completely different way of thinking about satiety,” Pollan writes. “So ask yourself not, ‘Am I full?’ but ‘Is my hunger gone?’. That moment will arrive several bites sooner.”
Rule 49 tells you to eat slowly, but also reminds you of the almost-forgotten advice to put down your fork between bites. And Rule 47 refers to the old wives’ test: if you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not hungry.
Then there’s the surprisingly simple Rule 52: Buy smaller plates and glasses. Pollan refers to research that found that switching from a 12in to a 10in dinner plate caused people to reduce their consumption by 22 per cent.
He says he wrote this book because a simple trip to the supermarket now requires people to navigate a “truly treacherous food landscape”.
Most of us have come to rely on experts such as doctors, nutritionists, government advisers and the media to tell us how to eat.
“It’s gotten to the point where we don’t see foods anymore but instead look right through them to the nutrients [good and bad] they contain, and of course to the calories . . . ” he writes.
So how did people manage to stay healthy before food science, nutrition experts and government guidelines?
“We relied, of course, on our mothers and grandmothers and more distant ancestors, which is another way of saying, on tradition and culture,” he says.
“We know there is a deep reservoir of food wisdom out there, or else human beings would not have survived and prospered to the extent we have.”
To access this reservoir of wisdom, Pollan posted a request on the Well blog on nytimes.com and received more than 2,500 suggestions within days.
Some of those ended up in the book such as Rule 36: Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk. Other suggestions from readers were not taken up, such as the bizarre advice that you shouldn’t eat anything bigger than your head.
Pollan also rejected the one advising only one meat per pizza. “Probably not a sure-fire prescription for good health,” he notes.
Some rules in his book need no explanation such as Rule 20: It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car. “It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles,” he writes.
One of his favourite rules came from Jewish and Italian grandmothers: The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead. And great-grandmothers are invoked with the rule, “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food”.
He invites readers to imagine their great-grandmothers in the supermarket and asks what they would make of products such as yogurt tubes. There goes the entire aisle of confectionery and snacks, not to mention the frozen nuggets, pizzas and burgers. “The great-grandma rule will help keep most of these items out of your cart,” he suggests.
Food writer and critic John McKenna says he’s not surprised that the book has already been a number one bestseller in the US.
“Even though it is concise, there are 15 years of serious thinking about cooking and eating and food industry policies behind it,” he says.
"Pollan is a wonder. I've read all his books and I think The Omnivore's Dilemmais the most important food book of the last 20 years."
That book, which traces the meal on your plate back through the food chain, won a slew of awards and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
McKenna says Pollan is smart because he comes to food from the outside and this gives his thoughts on the food industry such kudos.
“I guess Pollan’s 64 rules are the food equivalent of Martin Luther’s 95 theses. But they will only be controversial if you want to defend the indefensible, which is a food industry that is ruining human health. Unlike Martin Luther, Pollan has a sense of humour, which helps.”
Dr Daniel McCartney, lecturer in human nutrition and dietetics at DIT, is more reserved in his praise for the book but says it has merit. “For example, ‘Make and take your own lunch to work, it saves money and you know what you’re eating’, constitutes a sound, pragmatic, common-sense approach towards ensuring a healthier food intake outside the home,” he says.
“Similarly, the advice to buy smaller plates and glasses is a tacit acknowledgement of the prominent role which increased portion sizes have played in the obesity epidemic over recent years.”
But the spokesman for the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute says many of the guidelines cited in the book are ambiguous. “For example, the broad, derisory reference to all ‘foods made in a plant’ as ‘chemical concoctions’ conveniently ignores the vast and growing array of foods which are actually enriched with important nutrients during the manufacturing process,” McCartney says.
“Similarly, the expansive statement, ‘You won’t get fat eating food that you prayed over’, is open to all kinds of misinterpretation by an already confused public.”
McCartney says the standard food pyramid may lack some of the anecdotal appeal of Pollan’s rules, “but the explicit unambiguous principles which it espouses are likely to prove far more useful if achieving a healthy diet is your objective”.
If, indeed, this is your objective but temptation often proves too much, then the final rule in the book will appeal to you. “Break the rules every once in a while,” Pollan advises and reminds us of the adage, “All things in moderation, including moderation”.
EATING RULES
RULE 13:Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
RULE 23:Treat meat as a flavouring or special occasion food.
RULE 26:Drink the spinach water.
RULE 39:Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
RULE 40:Be the kind of person who takes supplements – then skip the supplements.
RULE 47:Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
RULE 50:The banquet is in the first bite.
RULE 51:Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it.
RULE 57:Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
RULE 59:Try not to eat alone (because you eat more).
Food Rules – An Eater’s Manual
is published by Penguin and costs €6.99
