Food Rules
Michael Pollan
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
Penguin, 2010
160 Pages
£4.99
ISBN 978-0141048680
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It is often said that one should remain skeptical of any field that feels the need to attach the word “science” to its core subject area. In his delightful book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, UC Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan takes aim at the often conflicting claims of “nutritional science”. And with good reason: despite the dramatic recent expansion in public understanding of nutrition, Americans alone still spend up to $1.5 trillion a year treating preventable chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and obesity. Using a combination of humour and keen scientific knowledge, Pollan outlines 64 relatively easy dietary steps to reverse these troubling epidemiological statistics. His insights range from the straightforward (“avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce”) to the humorous (“don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of your milk”) and to the unexpected (“avoid food products with the word “lite” or the terms “low-fat” or “nonfat” in their names”).
Pollan corroborates his pronouncements with some remarkable findings, drawing on a wide array of disciplines. Although his book is admittedly not “anti-science”, he is careful to acknowledge the limitations of scientific endeavour and is not afraid to consult unorthodox sources like anthropologists, nurses, and great grandmothers. Who knew that the Kenyan Masai, with a diet composed of cattle blood, milk, and meat, tend not to suffer from Western diseases? Who knew that the ancient Jewish saying—“The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead”—was actually true?
Although Pollan’s astute analyses are primarily directed at individuals from the United States, his findings broadly apply to all nations that have adopted the “Western diet”: a highly processed meal selection of meat, refined sugars, salt, and non-whole wheat grains, with little vegetable and fruit consumption. Pollan shows that his 64 steps can be broken down into three further categories that capture the essence of his simple (but not simplistic) thesis, described as Eat food, Not too much, and Mostly plants. This book is clever, engrossing, and broadly relevant—it should not be missed.
Joel Krupa is reading for an MSc in Environmental Policy at Mansfield College, Oxford.
