Food Rules (64 tips for eating well)

Food Rules is a great little book to read, a real investment in your health and a good way for all of us to send supermarkets a strong message on the kind of food we want to eat. Spending a tenner could change your life!

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets. If growing food, read about pet-friendly gardens (avoid facing indoor plants to gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows).

This book is by American ‘real food campaigner’ Michael Pollan. He is very well-respected in the USA. He’s not vegetarian, this book is more about ‘real food’, though he does say that eating well can be summed up in seven words:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

It’s not just about ‘no sweets at the checkout’. He has really studied supermarkets in detail, and says they have no interest whatsoever in your health, all they care about is profit. He gives a few proof rules of this:

If big supermarkets cared, they would have aisles and aisles of fresh organic produce, and healthy brands. But instead, all of them have one or two aisles of fresh produce, then sell high-profit junk food elsewhere.

They also always put daily essentials (bread, milk) near the far corner. So you have to walk through the store to get them, in the hope that you will buy other things you don’t need.

High-profit junk food is always at eye level (with offers) and healthy food is not. Take a look next time you visit, he’s right. Frosties will be at eye level, but lowly porridge oats will likely be on the bottom shelf.

Supermarkets have no windows or clocks. The idea is that you can kind of have your brain disappear while in there. Some (like Co-op) blast out loud music, it’s all designed at certain beats to ‘hypnotise you’ into buying more. Even though it could cause ear pain in older people with hearing aids.

TV ads put your brain into alpha mode (like when Buddhists meditate, but this time not in a good way). There have been surveys where people have asked customers why they have certain brands in their trolley. And truthfully – they have no idea!

So back to the book. In a nutshell, Michael has gathered all his wisdom to teach you how to eat, whatever your dietary preference. You read a little about each rule, then find simple tips to put it into practice. If you read and implemented one rule a week, by a year you should have changed your diet, saved on grocery bills, and learned to eat well!

Here are a few examples (also note that one of the rules is ‘break the rules once in a while!):