Heart-smart food rules: your dietary dos and don’ts

Author and foodie Michael Pollan asked and answered this question of his New York Times readers last year:

“How did humans manage to choose foods and stay healthy before there were nutrition experts and food pyramids or breakfast cereals promising to improve your child’s focus or restaurant portions bigger than your head?

“We relied on culture, which is another way of saying: on the accumulated wisdom of the tribe.”

Curious about the wisdom of other people’s tribes, Pollan asked his NYT readers to send him their own favourite rules for eating well. Within days, he received over 2,500 responses, including gems like:

“If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry.”

Here are just 20 of the food rules he liked best.

What’s your best food rule for eating well? Share it with us!

3 thoughts on “Heart-smart food rules: your dietary dos and don’ts”

I really enjoy Michael Pollen’s writing – please keep sharing his wisdom with us! I have just become a new subscriber to your website posts.

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Much like usual, several great details in this NYT article for us. I like the ‘rules’ like: “Never eat something that pretends to be something else (‘textured vegetable protein’ pretending to be meat, or ‘margarine’ = fake butter, – or ‘low fat sour cream’).

Our family’s basic rule to eat by: no second – or third! – helpings. We now ‘plate’ our meals, instead of putting big platters of food in the center of the table like we grew up with. Nobody needs two big pieces of lasagna!

I wanted to thank you for taking the time to post this thought-provoking info.

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