Food Rules

Another older one I forgot to post here.

As a child of the suburbs in the 1980's, I was raised on canned soup and canned vegetables, boxes of au gratin potatoes to be reconstituted in the oven, colorful cereals, bright orange macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, frozen dinners, soda and chips and almost anything that could be "cooked" in the microwave. And it was all delicious.
As a adult, I've accumulated over 30 years of information from food industry advertising, but very little food common sense. The news media seems to constantly be announcing some new miracle food or diet that can solve all the worlds health problems, and the health claims made on food packaging, coupons, commercials and advertised by the food industry's marketing departments are overwhelming but not very helpful.
Sometimes, what I really need to hear is a message more like this one:
"Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself."
or
"Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does."
or
"Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry."
Last year I read (and recommended here) Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto in which he recommended that we "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." His new book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, is like a more useful and more memorable version of the scribbled notes I took while reading the last book. With 64 memorable food rules and a brief explanation of each, this small paperback book is a quick read with an important message.
The fresh broccoli, beets or bananas in the produce section may not flaunt their nutritional value with charts and shiny packaging, but as Michael Pollan would say (and he does in Rule #25) "Eat your colors" and those bright green, red and yellow fruits and vegetables suddenly look a lot more appealing!
112 pages