20 Food Rules

Last March, Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and some other great books, posted a request for readers’ rules about eating on the New York Times health blog, Well, written by Tara Parker-Pope.

More than 2,500 responses came back, more than any other post had ever received and here are 20 of Pollan’s favorites.

1. Don’t eat egg salad from a vending machine.
2. You can’t leave the table until you’ve finished your fruit (from an Italian family rule).
3. You don’t get fat on food you pray over.
4. From a Romanian grandmother: “Breakfast, you should eat alone. Lunch, you should share with a friend. Dinner, give to your enemy.”
5. Don’t eat anything that took more energy to ship than to grow.
6. Never eat something that is pretending to be something else. (e.g. no margarine, “low fat” sour cream, “chocolate-flavored” sauce without chocolate in it.)
7. “Don’t yuck someone’s yum.” Not a diet strategy but an important food lesson. There is someone out there who likes deep-fried sheep eyeballs, and, well, more power to them.
8. Make and take your own lunch to work.
9. If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry.
10. The Chinese have a saying: “Eat until you are seven-tenths full and save the other three tenths for hunger.” That way, food always tastes good and you don’t eat too much.
11. Eat foods in inverse proportion to how much its lobby spends to push it.
12. I am living in Japan and following these simple rules in preparing each meal: GO HO – incorporate five different cooking methods (steamed rice, simmered vegetables, grilled tofu, sauteed vegetables, raw fish, etc.) GO SHIKI – incorporate five colors (red, white, green, black, yellow) GO MI – incorporate five flavors (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, spicy).
13. Avoid snack foods with the “oh” sound in their names: Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, Ho Hos, etc.
14. One of my top rules for eating comes from economics. The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite. This helps me slow down, savor the first bites, stop eating sooner.
15. Don’t eat anything you aren’t willing to kill yourself.
16. No second helpings, no matter how scrumptious.
17. When drinking tea, just drink tea. . . I believe that it’s so much better for our bodies when we are present to our food.
18. When you’re eating, don’t talk about other past meals, whether better or worse. Focus on what’s in front of you. Good meals are more throroughly enjoyed this way, and lousy meals can yield their own useful information. . . .
19. “Don’t create arbitrary rules for eating if their only purpose is to help you feel in control.” I try to eat healthfully, but if there’s a choice between eating ice cream and spending all day obsessing about eating ice cream, I’m going to eat the ice cream!
20. “It’s better to pay the grocer than the doctor.”

I shortened some of the comments. You can see them formatted in their complete and graphic form at the   NY Times site.

I’d love it if you’d share your favorite food rules or beliefs here with me. The field is wide open and I don’t care about “politically correct.” I care about authentic. Thanks.