John arrived home late on Sunday night for a few days – spring break from college. He opened his rucksack and said ‘I have something you’ll enjoy but you have to have it read by Friday because it’s a college library book’. He’d read it on the plane and had found it very interesting.
The book was ‘In Defence of Food’ by Michael Pollan, author of ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’. A New York Times Review is here
The book opens with three sentences; Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. He uses these three as headings for a set of policies to guide us in our eating choices.
Under Eat food
Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother would not recognise as food
Depending on your age, you may need to go back further. He quotes one British nutritionist who advised, ‘Just don’t eat anything your Neolithic ancestors wouldn’t have recognised and you’ll be okay.’
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.
He states that none of these characteristics, not even the last one, is necessarily harmful but all are indicators of foods that have been highly processed. He quotes the example of yeast bread containing four ingredients, flour, yeast, water and a pinch of salt. Yet an example of a loaf of bread contained forty one ingredients, including additives to make it ‘cottony soft, snowy white and exceptionally sweet on the tongue’, with a label showing the latest in nutritional wisdom. Because this loaf of bread failed the great-grandmother rule above, he added this rule.
Avoid food products that make health claims
For a food to make a health claim, it must have a package, therefore it’s more likely to be a processed food than a whole food. He believes that health claims have become hopelessly corrupt. I love his line, ‘Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing to say about health.’
Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle
The logic being, though not fool-proof, that most processed foods are in the centre aisles.
Get out of the supermarket whenever possible
And into the farmers markets. He says the surest way to escape the western diet is to run from the realm it rules – the supermarket, the convenience store and the fast-food outlet. He reckons it’s hard to eat badly from the farmers market, a vegetable box or your garden. He uses the adage, ’shake the hand that feeds you’.
Under Mostly plants
Eat mostly plants especially leaves
And as many different types of plants as possible as they have different antioxidants which eliminate different kinds of toxins. He states that in countries where people eat a pound or more of fruits and vegetables a day, the rate of cancer is half that in the US. Plants being less energy dense, you will consume far fewer calories which in itself is protective against many chronic diseases. We don’t need to eat meat, though he doesn’t seem to be totally against meat. He seems to be more of a flexitarian. He quoted Thomas Jefferson – treat meat as “a condiment for the vegetables”
You are what what you eat eats too
You need to read that one twice! The diet of the animals we eat has a bearing on the nutritional quality and healthfulness of the meat, milk or eggs we eat.
If you have space, buy a freezer
Buy quality in quantity
Eat like an omnivore
Biodiversity in the diet means biodiversity in the fields which means less pesticides, less fertilisers used, which would mean healthier plants and animals which in turn leads to healthier people.
Eat well-grown food from healthy soils
He reckons organic is important but organic farmers aren’t the only ones who grow things well. Organic does not equal health. He cites the example that organic coke may be good for the environment but not for our health. The ideal is organic and local.
Eat wild food when you can
He includes plants, animals and fish. Now where did I put that shotgun? It’s okay, I don’t need it as he later says forget about the animals and fish as there wouldn’t be enough.
Be the kind of person who takes supplements
You need to read that one carefully. Be the kind of … He reckons supplement takers are healthier for reasons having nothing to do with the pills. They’re typically more health conscious, better educated, and more affluent. So to the extent you can, be the kind of person who would take supplements and then … save your money. He’s not adverse to multivitamins/multimineral and a fish oil supplement, if you don’t eat much fish. He recommends them particularly after our child bearing years are past as to put it bluntly, nature doesn’t seem to care about us then. Our bodies’ need for and ability to absorb antioxidants from food declines after we’ve done our bit for the human race. Now I’m really feeling wanted!
Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. Or the Greeks.
Not limited to the above but basically people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture rather than a western diet. He named a few others. Ireland was not mentioned, needless to say. We’re in the pot with the US and UK. Basically he thinks most traditional diets are okay. If they weren’t, their followers wouldn’t have lasted. He reckons there are two dimensions to a traditional diet – the foods a culture eats and how they eat them. Traditions in food reflect long experience and embody a nutritional logic that shouldn’t be easily ignored.
Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism
He reckons that if diets are the product of evolutionary improvement, then a novel food or culinary innovation resembles a mutation, which may or not be an improvement.
Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet
Dietary patterns seem to be more than the sum of the foods that comprise them.
Have a glass of wine with dinner
I like this one. Red wine. One glass for a woman and two for a man. I’ve always thought the world was badly divided.
Under Not too much
Pay more. Eat less
There’s trade-off between quantity and quality. He advises eat less, whether you are overweight or not. Calorie reduction has been shown to slow aging and prolong lifespan in animals. He quotes ‘Eat until you are 80% full’.
Eat meals
Yes he had to put this in because he reckons we are snacking more and eating fewer meals together. Eating while watching TV. Eating in the car. I loved the line ‘It is at the dinner table that we socialise and civilise our children, teaching them manners and the art of conversation.’ I hope I’ve done my bit for civilisation 
To counter the risk of the snack and restore the meal to its rightful place, he suggests:
- Do all your eating at the table
- Don’t get fuel from the same place as your car does
- Try not to eat alone
- Consult your gut
- Eat slowly
- Cook and, if you can, plant a garden
That’s one of the plans Denis and I have for this spring – to sow a garden.
So they’re his policies. I included them above as much for myself as for you the reader.
What did I think?
There’s a lot of common sense in what he says. He seems to be a lot less fundamentalist than some writers in this arena. His policies are good ‘rules of thumb’. He doesn’t single out any foods as wonder foods. He leaves plenty of scope to choose different foods. There’s loads more common sense in the book which I haven’t included. But that’s really why I liked the book. I like common sense, even though it’s not always common.
I’ve always been interested in healthy foods. Did I learn anything new? Both yes and no. Some I knew already but some was certainly new. What he did do for me was to put me back on the straight and narrow, so to speak. Reading this book was a good wake-up call for me.
This morning I said goodbye to John at the airport. I’m glad he said to me that I must read this book by Friday.
I’m also glad I’m such an obedient mother!
Has anyone else read this book? What do you think of Pollan’s food policies?
