Photo credit:
sarah gilbert, flickr
Michael Pollan wants your food rules. The New York Times columnist and best selling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma has at least one rule of his own. It comes in three parts: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He posted a request for other people's food rules on his blog recently and people have left all kinds of rules in the comments to the post. Some of them are as simple as "No pastel breakfast cereals."
Maurica Anderson says, "I try to eat as we did in the early evolution of the human race: vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains, though I draw the line at bugs and grubs." Betsy K. suggests, "Don’t eat anything that comes in a crinkly bag." That one gave me second thoughts about my Chips Ahoy cookie habit.
Some of the comments repeat rules that we may have heard before. K. Haring says, "Eat nothing containing corn syrup." The Pharaoh in Phoenix suggests, "Buy real food. Cook it yourself. Eat it sitting down, at a table, preferably with friends and/or family."
Someone with the initials NMN wisely offers, "Always drink upstream from the herd." This must be cowboy lore. One I really liked came from LJ Merriam. LJ says, "Fast food is a carrot. French fries start with a knife and potato."
Many people's rules emphasize moderation or portion control. It's good to leave the table a little hungry they say. As I write this almost 1600 people have left food rule comments at Michael Pollan's blog. One rule that I did not find there, a rule that I follow and that I would urge you to consider is simply this:
"Eat more pie."
What are some of your food rules?
How to foster green biodiversity
Comments (11)Add a Comment
Inappropriate or promotional comments may be removed.
One of my rules or guidelines is try to stick to the outside aisles at the grocery store -- where whole foods, fruits, and breads live.
Good rule, Rachael! All the packaged, processed, corn syrup laden stuff seems to be in the middle of the store.
Try to make your meal plate or bowl as colorful as possible with different veggies.
i always loved adele davis' famous advice: "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." i eschew processed foods for the main. anything that has more than 3-5 simple, easy to pronounce ingredients is suspect in my book.
I have one food rule: DON'T WASTE IT.
Produce:
"A" quality goes to home preserve or market.
"B" quality goes to our table.
"C" quality goes to the chickens (includes outer leaves of market greens, broccoli leaves, sunflower heads unsuited for market).
"D" quality goes to the cows (who clear the produce field of all other produce rubble during their winter sojourn there).
The corn we don't preserve for our own use goes to chickens. Corn stalks go to cows.
Protein: We know every meat cut and how to prepare it. From oxtail to pork hock, no cut is too humble to use and appreciate. Green pasture free range chickens hang out with the cows, harvesting bugs that the cattle attract. We eat all the eggs we want and sell the rest. Litter (loose barn hay and chicken poo) from the chicken's night time roost house is the primary compost bin input (which then, of course, feeds the vegetables and fruit trees).
Hay: Any spring and summer pasture grass the cattle (and elk and deer) don't eat is cut, dried and stored. Hay the cows may waste in the winter hay feeding season in the produce field is tilled under for organic humus (food for the soil).
Soil food: After the produce harvest in the fall, a cover crop of winter rye and vetch is started. This supplements cattle feed until the plants go dormant for the winter, then in the spring, after the cattle have left the field, grows up providing organic humus and up to 300 lbs/acre of nitrogen-fixing soil food which will then be used by summer vegetables.
Sounds idyllic Betty Jo, but it tires me out just thinking about all the work that goes into it. Reminds me that I have to get my rototiller serviced. We're in that freeze/thaw part of March, or mud season as we call it. I imagine you already have plants in the ground.
Prepare simple food with joy and it will nourish both body and soul. Be well and Happy!
Yes, Lucy! Simplicity rules.
Read labels, or better yet, buy food that has no label.
frank said: "but it tires me out just thinking about all the work that goes into it. "
Well but....
I submit "Don't Waste It" is indeed the mantra for green, whether it be food, or water, or soil quality, or recycling. It is how we save the earth. Moreover, every hour we are working outdoors in the garden, in clean air, is an hour we aren't vegging in front of the TV wasting electricity, brain matter, and getting fat eating more calories than we burn. It's our earth. It's our food. I say "get out there and dig it!" It's the right thing to do.
Careful with the bread.... HFCS in those not to mention it's a grain... wait no, it's a PROCESSED grain. If anything, get sprouted grain bread.