Food Rules

Michael Pollan collected several years ago a list of food rules. I selected a few and added some:

• Eat real food that looks like food
• Don’t eat anything that contains substances a 10 year old could not pronounce
• Only buy foods you want to eat yourself. Don’t fool yourself you buy for ‘guests”
• Avoid all food containing high fructose corn syrup
• Learn all names for sugar and avoid them in your food
• Agave syrup/nectar
• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids
• Dehydrated Cane Juice
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Glucose
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Maltodextrin
• Malt syrup
• Maltose
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Rice Syrup
• Saccharose
• Sorghum or sorghum syrup
• Sucrose
• Syrup
• Treacle
• Turbinado Sugar
• Avoid all food that is advertised on TV
• Shop on the outside isles of the supermarkets, shop in farmers markets, in small shops
• Eat food that will eventually rot, avoid immortal foods
• Snack on real foods like nuts, eggs, carrots, celery
• If food came from a plant eat; if it was made in a plant do not.
• Don’t buy food where you buy petrol, hardware, paper clips
• Avoid food products that say ‘now low fat’ or ‘lite’
• Eat plenty of plants, especially leaves.
• Eat all colours every day; dark green leaves, orange carrots, red capsicum. Don’t forget blues and purples: include blue berries, beetroot, red cabbage, aubergines.
• Treat food with respect. Eat animals that have eaten and lived well themselves. Animals living free range and eating natural food live healthier and produce better quality meat.
• Grow your own herbs, vegetables, fruit
• Eat fish low in food chain (mackerel, sardines, anchovies). Predator fish high up in the food chain have accumulated more mercury ( tuna, swordfish, and shark)
• Avoid intensive farmed meat and fish.
• Eat fermented foods: yogurt, sauerkraut, soy sauce, kimchi, and sourdough bread.
• Eat foods that come sweetened by nature, fruits, berries.
• Vary your breakfast: it does not need to be out of a square box.
• When you feel like junk food, cook it yourself
• Stop eating before you are too full.
• When you want to eat ask yourself: is it hunger or thirst or boredom or habit?
• Sit down and enjoy food slowly, spend as much time enjoying your food as you took preparing it.
• If you want to shed weight, use smaller plates and glasses, serve one portion, and do not go back for seconds.
• Treat treats, as treats.
• Treat rules as guidelines, not gospel. Break the rules once and a while.
• Be conscious of living, be aware of what you eat, keep a positive mental attitude. Enjoy life!