Day 7

Of my new way at viewing food and all things consumable.
I have forgot to write about this but between reading “Omnivores Dilemma” and “In Defense of Foods” both by Michael Pollan, my eyes have been opened, somehow in a way that nothing else has worked.
Giving up processed, food product seems to be almost as easy as not eating meat to me. I have no issues with not eating meat, the product does not even appeal to me, because morally I can not do so. But other choices in my life as far as what I put in my body have always been harder. I think we are programmed to listen to food scientist who really do not know everything that makes our bodies tick. It may be the antioxidants in the pomegranate but it may be the synergy between more than one nutrient that has that affect on us, so simply making it a capsule for swallowing may not be benefiting us in any way.

Michael Pollan makes you open yours eyes, and I for one really want to listen to this man speak.
He will be at the West Roxbury Library on May 12, 2009, 7:30 PM.

I have wrote about him before regarding the articles he writes for the New York Times about food, sustainability and the human connection to the food we eat. The man is amazing and all that he states is so true, everything the complete opposite from what we have been told by media and mislead by the FDA.

In “In Defense of Food” Pollan speak of the way we should eat. The motto being “Eat Food- Not Much- Mostly Plant” he list some basic guidelines to what should be in your meals and therefore ingested. Although some of these are basic food shopping and eating knowledge, Pollan reinforces how they work together.
1. Do not buy any food that your great-great-grandmother would not recognize as food (this is a great one and he uses the example of Go-gurt as a prime example)
2. Do not buy anything with more than 5 ingredients
3. Do not buy anything with ingredients you do not know what they are
4. Do not buy anything with ingredients that you can not pronounce
5. Do not buy anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup
6. Stay within the outside aisles of the grocery store
7. Eat Food- Not to Much- Mostly Plants
8. That vegetarian diets are the best for you but a flexatarian diet that being with less than 1 serving of meat a day also has the same benefit
9. Eat Local whenever possible, during summer months shop Farmers Markets for most of your weekly food.
10. Stay away from too many seed and vegetable oils that lead to higher Omega 6′s in the body than Omega 3
11. Opt for whole milk versus skim or fat free as the skim or fat free loss all nutritional content and at some points include includes powdered milk
12. Stay away from any refined carbohydrates
13. There is no such thing as Whole Grain White Bread
14. Do not eat anything that makes health claims on the packaging

There are so much more good advice within his books. He covers the process in which the food lobbiest over the last 50 years have worked to convince the FDA that food was just that FOOD.

I suggest anyone and everyone pick up these two books.

As for me I am on day 7 of trying to keep my food local, organic and with limited “ingredients”, with summer coming I am all set.