Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

by Michael Pollan

Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.

Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.

Avoid food products that make health claims.

Avoid food products with the wordoid “lite” or the terms “low-fat” or “nonfat” in their names.

Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not.

Personal exception: occasional use of fake meat in dishes where (a) mixing of meat and dairy would otherwise make them treif and (b) vegetable alternatives suck (see: the once-every-five-years-or-so sausage loaf) (No exception for immitation dairy because all options are just depressing)

Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.

Note that for some bizarre reason Safeway puts dairy and eggs two aisles in from alcohol and baked goods

Eat your colors.

Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacteria or fungi.

Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

Personal exception: you will pry my tea biscuits from my cold, dead hands

If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they’re so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you’re willing to prepare them—chances are good it won’t be every day.

You underestimate the power of ADHD hyperfocus. I will absolutely make a new flavour of gelato every two or three days when I'm on a kick

And how many of us have grandparents who talk of “leaving the table a little bit hungry”?

I dont know whose grandmothers youve been talking to but they definitely werent mine

Buy smaller plates and glasses.

Try not to eat alone.

Treat treats as treats.

Another is to limit your consumption of such foods to weekends or social occasions. Some people follow a so-called S policy: “no snacks, no seconds, no sweets—except on days that begin with the letter S.”

Or as one woman at my shul put it: calories dont count on shabbat

Cook.