Michael Pollan’s newest book is The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He discussed the $36 billion in food marketing dollars ($10 billion directed to kids alone) designed to get us to eat more, to eat more dubious “neofoods,” and to eat on more occasions. To eat better he proposed a few “rules”:
1. “Don’t eat anything your great-great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
2. “Avoid foods containing high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).” HFCS is present not only in cereals and soft drinks but also in ketchup, bologna, baked goods, soups, and salad dressings. HFCS was not part of the human diet until 1975, and now each of us consumes 40 pounds of it a year, some 200 calories a day. Avoiding it avoids thousands of empty calories. Cut out highly processed foods—the ones that contain the most sugar, fat, and salt.
3. “Spend more, eat less.” We spend only 10% of our income on food, a smaller share than any other nation, and we spend a larger percentage than any other nation on health care (16%). The cheap food is making us fat and unhealthy. Eat higher-quality food.
4. “Pay no heed to nutritional science or the health claims on packages.” The healthiest foods in the supermarket—fresh produce—are the ones that don’t make Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved health claims, which typically decorate the packages of the most highly processed foods.
5. “Shop at the farmers’ market.” Here you will begin to eat foods in season, when they are at the peak of their nutritional value and flavor.
6. “How you eat is as important as what you eat.” The lesson of the “French Paradox” is that we can eat all kinds of supposedly toxic substances as long as we follow our mother’s rule, “Eat moderate portions, don’t go for seconds or snacks between meals, never eat alone, and eat with pleasure.”
Pollan M. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Group, 2006 (464 pp).
In each edition of the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, William Roberts, MD (Editor in Chief) reviews books, summarizes medical news and sometimes rants about topics of the day. The section is called “Facts and ideas from anywhere” and the post above is an excerpt.
Posted by Scott W. Yates, MD, MBA, MS, FACP
