"Eat food..."

I have to record some more thoughts from The Defense of Food so I don't forget them. The bottom line for Michael Pollan's book is his eater's manifesto: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Here are a few thoughts: (anything in italics is me)

First he tries to define "food" and gives some rules:

"Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food (stuff like go-gurt, is it a yogurt or a toothpaste?) There are in fact hundreds of foodish products in the supermarket that your ancestors simply wouldn't recognize as food...cheeselike food-stuffs equally innocent of any bovine contribution; cakelike cylinders (with creamlike fillings) called Twinkies that never grow stale. Don't eat anything incapable of rotting is another personal policy you might consider adopting."

"Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup." (i.e. azodicarbonamide is pretty hard to say, try it!)

"Avoid food products that make health claims." This includes an interesting look at how easy it is to get a health claim approved by the FDA. While shopping the boxes and bags with all the claims screaming out at you in red..."the genuinely heart-healthy whole foods in the produce section, lacking the financial and political clout of the packaged goods a few aisles over, are mute. But don't take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health." (Ha ha, the "silence of the yams" made me laugh out loud)

"Get out of the supermarkets whenever possible" Here's where you get the plug for planting your own garden, buying organic, farmer's markets, and CSA boxes. He makes a good point that buying organic fruit from a distant land might not be as good as buying locally. (I think I've heard Ryan say this too.) Another good point is that all the above gardeners are much closer to their products and buyers than huge farmers. "Shake the hand that feeds you. As soon as you do, accountability becomes once again a matter of relationships instead of regulation or labeling or legal liability." (pg 160)