OBC Food Rules-Day 21: It’s Not Food if it’s Called the Same Name in Every Language (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles)

OBC Food Rules-Day 13: Eat Only Foods that will Eventually Rot

What does it mean for our food to “go bad”?  It usually means that the fungi and bacteria and insects and rodents with whom we compete for nutrients and calories have got to it before we did.  Food processing began as a way to extend the shelf life of food by protecting it from these competitors.  This is often accomplished by making the food less appealing to them, by removing other nutrients likely to turn rancid, like omega-3 fatty acids.  The more processed a food is, the longer the shelf life, and the less nutritious it typically is.  Real food is alive – and therefore should eventually die.  (There are a few exceptions to this rule: For example, honey has a shelf life measured in centuries.)  Note:  Most of the immortal foodlike substances in the supermarket are found in the middle aisles.

OBC Food Rules-Day 12: Shop the Peripheries of the Supermarket and Stay Out of the Middle

Most supermarkets are laid out in the same way.  Processed foods dominate the center aisles of the store, while the cases of more fresh food – produce, meat and fish, dairy – line the walls.  If you keep to the edges of the store, you’ll be much more likely to wind up with real food in your shopping cart.  This strategy is not foolproof, however since things like high-fructose corn syrup have crept into the dairy case under the flavored yogurts and the like.

Food Rules-Day 6: Avoid Food Products that Contain More than 5 Ingredients

The specific number you adopt is arbitrary, but the more ingredients in a packaged food, the more highly processed it probably is.  Note 1: A long list of ingredients in a recipe is not the same thing; that's fine.  Note 2:  Some products now boast, somewhat deceptively, about their short ingredients lists.  Haagen-Dazs has a new line of ice cream called "five".  Great-but it's still ice cream.  Sames goes for the three-ingredient Tostitos corn chips advertised by Frito-Lay - okay, but they're still corn chips.  In such cases, apply rule 60 for dealing with treats and special occasion foods.