Food Rules-Day 2: Don't Eat Anything Your Great-Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food

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.

Food Rules-Day 1: Eat Food

These days this is easier said than done, especially when seventeen thousand new products show up in the supermarket each year, all vying for your food dollar.  But most of these items don't deserve to be called food - I call them edible foodlike substances.  They're highly processed concoctions designed by food scientists, consisting mostly of ingedients derived from corn & soy that no normal person keeps in their pantry, and they contain chemical additives with which the human body has not been long acquainted.  Today much of the challenge of eating well comes down to choosing real food and avoiding these industrial novelties.

64 Days of Food Rules Starts Monday, April 29th

Eating doesn't have to be so complicated.  In this age of ever-more elaborate diets and conflicting health advice, Food Rules brings a welcome simplicity to our daily discussions about food.  Written with clarity, concision and wit, this indespensible handbook lays out a set of straightforward, memorable rules for eating wisely, accompianied by a concise explanation.  It's an easy-to-use guide that draws from a variety of traditions, suggesting how different cultures through the ages have arrived at the same enduring wisdom about food.  Whether at the supermarket or an all-you-can-eat buffet, this is the perfect guidefor anyone who ever wondered "What should I eat?"

Make a note now to follow each day to learn, what you will find to be, easy, sensible, honest and quick rules to view your food choices going forward!

Bring on the Raspberries!

Food for Thought:    

’Tis the season to stock up on juicy, ripe raspberries. These ephemeral delicacies are hard to resist, especially since they are teeming with healthy nutrients.

Health Benefits. Raspberries are rich in folate, vitamin C, iron and potassium. The fruit also contains soluble fiber pectin, which may help control cholesterol levels, while the seeds provide a lot of insoluble fiber. Raspberries are a good source of cancer-fighting antioxidants, especially ellagic acid.

read on....