Imagine your great-grandmother (or grandmother depending on your age) at your side as your roll down the aisles of the supermarket. You're standing together in front of the dairy case. She picks up a package of Go-Gurt Portable Yogurt Tubes - and hasn't a clue what the plastic cylinder of colored and flavored gel could possibly be. Is it a food or is it toothpaste? There are now thousands of foodish products in the supermarket that our ancestors simply wouldn't recognize as food.
The reasons to avoid eating such complicated food products are many, and go beyond the various chemical additives and corn and soy derivatives they contain, or the plastics in which they are typically packaged, some of which are probably toxic. Today foods are processed in ways specifically designed to get us to buy and eat more by pushing our evolutionary buttons-our inborn preferences for sweetness & salt. These tastes are difficult to find in nature but cheap & easy for the food scientists to deploy, with the result that food processing induces us to consume more of these rarities than is good for us. The great-grandma rule will help keep most of these items out of your cart.
Note: If your great-grandmother was a terrible cook or eater, you can substitute someone else's grandmother-a Sicilian or French one works particularly well.
The next several rules refine this strategy by helping you navigate the treacherous landscape of the ingredients label.
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