Monday, January 29, 2007

What Should You Eat?


While we're on the subject of the New York Times, there was a great essay published there yesterday by Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma.

The essay was about what we should be eating.

Now readers of this blog know that I'm partial to Dr. Willett's Healthy Eating Pyramid, however Dr. Pollan's essay, especially its first line, gets it pretty much bang on,

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
It's a long piece, but one well worth reading.

I'd be willing to wager a great deal of money in Vegas that Canada's pending Food Guide, won't meet with Dr. Pollan's approval.

Rather than post the whole thing, I'll summarize his summary for you here:
  1. Eat Food - According to Dr. Pollan, don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
  2. Avoid food products bearing health claims.
  3. Especially avoid food products whose ingredients are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than 5 in number, or contain high fructose corn syrup.
  4. Try to shop at Farmer's markets rather than Supermarkets.
  5. Pay more (organics, local etc.), and eat less.
  6. Eat more plants, especially leaves.
  7. Eat according to the traditional food culture of your choice (French, Italian, Greek). North American doesn't count unless it's first nations.
  8. Cook.
  9. Eat like an omnivore, lots of variety and diversity.
I imagine the folks from The Mouth Revolution would agree whole-mouthedly.