Six Rules For Eating Wisely

By Michael PollanTIME Magazine, June 4, 2006

Once upon an occasion Americans stood a culture of food to guide us over the increasingly treacherous landscape of diet choices: fat vs. carbs, organic vs. conventional, vegetarian vs. carnivorous. Culture in this case is simply a fancy way of saying “your mom.” She taught us things to eat, when you should eat it, how much of it to nibble on, even the order to eat it. But Mom’s influence over the dinner menu has proved no match for your $36 billion in food-marketing dollars ($10 billion sent to kids alone) designed to get us sac longchamps prix to nibble on more, eat many dubious neofoods, that will create entire new eating occasions, for example in the vehicle. Some food culture.

I’ve spent yesteryear five years exploring this daunting food landscape, following a industrial food chain in the Happy Meal time for the not-so-happy feedlots in Kansas and cornfields in Iowa where it begins and hearing aid technology organic food chain returning to the farms. My aim was in order to figure out what–like a nutritional, ethical, political and environmental matter–I would eat. As you go along, I’ve collected a couple of suggestions which may be useful in navigating some tips i call the Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Don’t eat anything your great-great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Imagine how baffled your ancestors could be inside a modern supermarket: the epoxy-like tubes of Go-Gurt, the preternaturally fresh Twinkies, the vaguely pharmaceutical Vitamin Water. Those aren’t foods, quite; they’re food items. History suggests you should wait a number of decades roughly before adding such novelties in your diet, the substitution of margarine for butter to be the classic just to illustrate. My mother accustomed to predict “they” would eventually discover that butter was better for you. She was right: the trans-fatty margarine is killing us. Eat food, not food products.

Avoid foods containing high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It’s not just in cereals and sodas sac longchamps pas cher but also in ketchup and bologna, baked goods, soups and curtains. Though HFCS has not been area of the human diet until 1975, each of us now consumes greater than 40 lbs. 12 months, some 200 calories a day. Is HFCS any worse for you personally than sugar? Not likely, but by avoiding it you’ll avoid a large number of empty calories and perhaps even more vital, remove processed foods–those who support the most sugar, fat and salt. Besides, what chef uses high-fructose corn syrup? Not one. It’s found only inside the pantry of the food scientist, and that’s not who you want cooking meals.

Save money, consume less. Americans are as dependent on cheap food as we will cheap oil. We spend only 9.7% in our income on food, a smaller share than any other nation. Can it be a coincidence we spend a bigger percentage than another on medical care (16%)? ??????sac ???? main longchamp soldes This all “cheap food” is causing us to be fat and sick. It’s also detrimental to the health of the planet. The larger the excellence of the what you eat, the greater nutritious it is as well as the less of it you’ll should feel satisfied.

Pay no heed to nutritional science or even the health claims on packages. It was science that told us margarine produced from trans fats is much better for us than butter made out of cow’s milk. The more I find out about the science of nutrition, the less certain I will be that we’ve learned anything important about food that our ancestors didn’t know. Take into consideration that the healthiest foods from the supermarket–the newest produce–are those that don’t make FDA-approved health claims, which generally festoon the packages of the most highly processed foods. When Whole fiber Lucky Charms show up in the cereal aisle, it’s time for it to stop paying focus on health claims.

Shop with the farmers’ market. You’ll begin to eat foods in season, when they are in the peak of their vitamins and minerals and flavor, and you’ll cook, since you won’t find anything processed or microwavable. You’ll also be supporting farmers in the community, helping defend the countryside from sprawl, saving oil by consuming food produced nearby and teaching your children that a carrot can be a root, not just a machine-lathed orange bullet which will come inside a plastic bag. A lot more is being conducted in the farmers’ market as opposed to exchange of greenbacks for food.

How we eat is as important as your diet. Americans are fixated on nutrients, good and bad, even though the French and Italians target the whole eating experience. The lesson of the “French paradox” is that you could eat a myriad of supposedly toxic substances (triple cr????????me cheese, foie gras) providing you follow your culture’s (i.e., mother’s) rules: eat moderate portions, don’t select seconds or snacks between meals, never eat alone. But perhaps most crucial, eat with pleasure, because eating with anxiety brings about poor digestion and bingeing. There's no French paradox, really, only an American paradox: a notably unhealthy people obsessive about thinking about eating healthily. So, relax. Eat Food. And savor it.