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Food Rules |  | Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: CDN$ 13.50
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 178
Media: Paperback
Pages: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 014311638X
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9780143116387
ASIN: 014311638X
Publication Date: December 29, 2009
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| Customer Reviews:
 Common sense in 64 bite-size pieces February 16, 2010
orange pippin (Vancouver Island, BC)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
If you were expecting a gastropolitical epiphany of the likes of The Omnivore's Dilemma, you will be sadly disappointed. Having said that, it is not to Pollan's discredit (in the least) that this latest book is not written in the same style or in the same context as his most popular book, or, even like his previous work, "In Defense of Food". There's no real narrative to follow and the theme, so simply reflected in the title, is to use common sense when deciding what to eat.
The book is organized as follows:
INTRODUCTION
PART 1: What should I eat? (Eat food.)
PART 2: What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly plants.)
PART 3: How should I eat? (Not too much.)
The first sentence of the introduction is, "Eating in our time has gotten complicated...". I bet most people would agree. And so, in an effort to simplify eating, Pollan brings us 64 tidbits of distilled common sense. Under each rule, there is a paragraph or two of explanation, insight, or context. In lieu of listening to the corporations, marketers, and vested nutrition experts, he puts forth a simple and empowering message: We have the wherewithal to decide for ourselves what we should eat.
Some of my favourite rules are:
-Avoid food products that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.
-Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
-If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.
-It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.
-Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
Is the point that you should go out and try to embrace all 64 rules? I really don't think so. Should you think about what you put in your mouth? Absolutely. Because if you aren't thinking about what you put in your mouth, someone else is. This is an excellent book to have with you while grocery shopping. Or to give to that time-strapped someone as a gift. The rules are bite-sized and easily digestible, and because of that, the common sense they embody will be palatable to a wide range of people, and hopefully, get those people thinking about what they eat.
This book is easily read within an hour. For all those who may complain about the book's length (or lack thereof), keep in mind that not everything that is simple is elegant but all things elegant usually embrace simplicity.
 Not what I thought.. January 6, 2010
D. Hua (Toronto, Ontario Canada)
21 out of 29 found this review helpful
I got this book thinking that Pollan was going to provide us with some really interesting Food Rules. I was pretty disappointed when I realized that it was just an incredibly simplified, dumb-downed version of some food rules. This is great for people who are becoming more health conscious, but for those who already know the basic rules of healthy eating and want more, this book is a let down. Would have been better if Pollan provided us with better examples of these rules. Also note, half this book is filled with blank pages and tiny pictures of veggies, not environmentally friendly and very wasteful.
Food Rules Rules! January 5, 2010
Norma Lehmeierhartie (New York, USA)
16 out of 19 found this review helpful
I picked up Food Rules: An Eater's Manual, because I have been searching for just this type of book for many of my clients as a New Year's gift. I read the slim book quickly in a bookstore and it is the perfect present for my clients who are not eating healthy diets (but who have confessed they wish to.)
I am an interior designer/organizer and see how my clients eat all the time when I redesign and organize their kitchens. Pollan's In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma are both excellent, but can be intimidating. Not Food Rules--it is short and easy to understand.
The book is divided into three parts and has 64 chapters or rules. The following will give you an good idea of what the book is about: Part I, What should I eat? Includes such chapters as "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food", "avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients", and "avoid foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup".
Part II, What kind of food should I eat? Includes "Eat mostly plants, especially leaves", "eat your colors", and "the whiter the bread, the sooner you will be dead."
Part III, How should I eat? Includes "pay more, eat less," "eat less," and "limit your snacks to unprocessed plant food."
For those of you who desire a healthier diet, Food Rules is a terrific guide that makes understanding what to put into your body simple to understand and implement.
Finally, if healthy eating is a new concept for you, you will find the clever chapter titles easy to memorize, thus making the concept of healthy eating a simple one to learn.
Highly recommend.
By the author of the award winning book, Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet.
Just Another Stupid Diet Book January 5, 2010
Oliver (Los Angeles)
36 out of 61 found this review helpful
Before I rip into this book, I will say this: a lot of people would be better off if they followed these rules. Many people in the developed world have terrible diets, and are overweight and otherwise unhealthy as a result. There is a lot of room for improvement, and following these rules would be far better than staying the course, at least for the majority of people. That being said, I can do better than this book in a single sentence: "Don't eat more calories than you burn each day, and eat a balanced diet." That advice is a whole lot better than the book, but of course you knew that already.
This book is just plain silly. It is full of contradictions. For example, within the first few pages, the author claims that everything he knows can be boiled down to just seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Just a couple of pages earlier, however, the author pointed to the diet of the Inuit, whom he says eat mostly whale blubber, and the Masai, whom the author claims survive mostly on beef and milk, as viable diets. Neither whales nor cows are plants. So, where does the author really stand on "mostly plants"? I still don't know.
Rule 4 is "avoid foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup." I fully agree. But, the author then goes on to say that it does not matter whether a product contains corn syrup, dextrose or any other kind of sugar, because "sugar is sugar." Well, duh. And, the author's rule apparently is, "avoid foods that contain a lot of sugar." I did not need to buy a book to learn that.
What really gets me riled up, however, is the anti-intellectual, and anti-scientific condescending attitude of the author. The author mixes in some intelligent comments with a bunch of complete nonsense. He tells us that we should rely on folk wisdom, because, after all, humans have survived a long time just fine. Really? As of 1900, the average life expectancy was what, 50 years at best? Before that, it was even less. Now it is what, 70+ years? And, for centuries, people thought leeches were a good way to treat your humors, or some such nonsense. Folk advice about health is almost always wrong. Science is often right. And, even when it is wrong, it is rarely if ever as far off the mark as folk "wisdom."
The idea of eating what your ancestors ate is a huge mistake, which the author would realize if he were aware of evolutionary theory. We evolved to like sugars and fats because these kept us alive long enough to reproduce. All evolution "cares" about is getting your genes into the next generation. Once you are past the age of reproduction, you are more or less dead weight and evolution does not care about you. Heart disease and cancer tend to kill those above 40. So, the diet that evolution favors could very well lead to those diseases. Modern folks, however, are concerned about being alive and healthy way past 40, and the diet of the past is almost certainly not going to favor that because evolution has an entirely different set of "priorities."
And, back to our grandmas' generation again, grandma was often more concerned with getting enough calories into her systems to make it through the day. She (like impoverished folks today) did not have to worry about getting fat and she did not have the luxury of turning down calories today because of possible long term effects. Until recently, you could not even get diet Coke in South America. If you asked for it, they would give you a funny look -- who in their right mind gives away calories? But then again, no one there was fat.
So, both from a cultural and from an evolutionary standpoint, looking at the diet of the past is asking for disaster because the health problems of today are new and different from those of the past.
I could go on ripping this book, but I've ranted long enough.
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