Food Rules-Day 10: Avoid Foods that are Pretending to be Something They Are Not

Imitation butter-aka margarine-is the classic example.  To make something like nonfat cream cheese that contains neither cream nor cheese requires an extreme degree of processing; such products should be labeled as imitations and avoided.  The same rule applies to soy-based mock meats, artificial sweeteners, and fake fats and starches.

Food Rules-Day 9: Avoid Food Products with the Wordoid "Lite" or the terms "Low-Fat" or "Nonfat" in their Names

The 40 year old campaign to create low and nonfat versions of tradition foods has been a failure:  We've gotten fat on low-fat products.  Why?  Becuase removing the fat from foods doesn't neccessarily make then nonfattening.  Carbohydrates can also make you fat, and many low and nonfat foods boost the sugars to make up for the loss of flavor.  Also, by demonizing one nutrient-fat-we inevitably give a free pass to another, supposedly "good", nutrient-carbohydrates in this case - and then proceed to eat too much of that instead.  Since the low-fat campaign began in the late 1970's, Americans have actually been eating more than 500 additional calories per day, most of them in the form of refined carbohydrates like sugar.  The result:  The average male is 17 lbs heavier, and the average female is 19 lbs heavier than in the late 1970's.  You;re better off eating the real thing in moderation than binging on "lite" food products packed with sugars and salt.

Food Rules-Day 8: Avoid Food Products That Make Health Claims

This sounds counterintuitive, but consider:  For a product to carry a health claim on its package, it must first have a package, so right off the bat, it's more likely to be processed rather than a whole food.  Then, only the big food manufacturers have the wherewithal to secure FDA-approved health claims for their products and then trumpet them to the world.  Generally, it is the products of modern food science that make the boldest health claims, and these are often founded on incomplete and often bad science.  Don't forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to contain more transfats that give people heart attacks.   The healthiest food in the supermarket-the fresh produce-doesn't boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don't have the budget or the packaging.  Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health.

Food Rules-Day 4: Avoid Food Products that Contain High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Not because high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is any worse for you than sugar, but because it is, like many of the other unfamiliar ingredients in packaged foods, a reliable marker for a food product that has been highly processed.  Also, high-fructose corn syrup is being added to hundreds of foods that have not been traditionally sweetened-breads, condiments, and many snack foods-so if you avoid products that contain it, you will cut down on your sugar intake.  But don't fall for the food industry's latest scam:  products reformulated to contain "no HFCS" or "real cane sugar."  These claims imply these foods are somehow healthier, they they are not.  Sugar is sugar.

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.

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!