Food Rules: How do they apply to your life?

I understand the point that he's trying to make, but honestly, rules like this drive me batty. Mostly because I'm a very literal person, and if you were to take most of them literally, you'd be making your food choices on the basis of completely irrelevant information. For example, I've passed a bag of home grown veggies to a friend though their car window, and they certainly weren't unfit to eat :laugh:

Well a little common sense goes a long way..............

Great post. I love the person who said too many rules. LOL!! It's sad that we have sooo many "food" options that a list on HOW to eat healthy has to contain soo many rules.


No, it doesn't have to be THAT hard to eat healthy if we all grew and killed our own food...THE END!

I'm a busy mom of three spoiled little girls and we are in the process of making as many changes as we can right now so we still have some really bad stuff hanging around the house. I have always baked their sweet treats myself but from time to time they like to have some of the pre-packegd junk from the store......from time to time though..not every day!

We do not buy sandwich bread at the store anymore. I make it myself. We mix our own pancake mix. I make my own pasta when time allows (with whole wheat flour for the bread and pasta). I read, read, read lables before I toss something in my cart at the store and sometimes it still makes me cringe knowing what I'm packing in the munchkins lunch but we are trying our best to make changes where we can and where te budget allows! I think half of our grocery bill is fresh produce anymore. Growing kids can eat a ton of fruit and veg in a few days time!
Thanks for a great read!


Forgot to add that my silly husband told me he was going to get me a grinder so I can grind my own wheat. I'm not THAT hardcore.......yet! We do raise our own beef and Ihave had to grind a chuck roast into grond beef a time or two.
I have to say, when you put the effort into your meals the food is by farmore satisfying and more tasty. I've always been a homecooked meal kind of girl (home made chicken noodle soup for lunch today with home made whole wheat noodles).
In fact our Valentine Dinner tomorrow night will be a home cooked meal...I would rather enjoy my food then worry about what is in it!

CharityEaton: I continue to be inspired by you daily. You prove that even a busy Mom can make things at home where you know every single ingredient that goes into the product--and into your kid's bellies!

Awe, thanks! I try my best but there are times I tell them to grab a package of fake cheese and cracker sticks. LOL! I even volunteered to make the cookies for the class party tomorrow so I would know what MY kid was eating LOL! I didn't want another mom sending in store cookies! How bad is that?? However I will be making the most god awful frosting to go on top of them...don't tell! I already feel guilty for slowly killing the entire class with my frosting but at least it has fewer scary things in it then a can of store frosting!

Michael Pollan and Andrew Weil have been big influences on how we eat. We belong to a CSA and get our veggies from there. We try to buy local whenever possible and don't buy much that comes in packages.

I personally love this book and searched for it by name to find this post. I understand why people who have no knowledge of Michael Pollan would see this huge list and be like WTF??

BUT he even says in his book these are more like personal policies instead of rules. And he wrote this as a response to all the people that kept hounding him, "What do I eat?" "What don't I eat?" He has written some investigative books that catalog his journey and what he found. And people read this and were so excited! But they expected him to have some neat and tidy answer to "Now knowing this information... What do I eat?" And the fact that he didn't have a ready answer frustrated people. And he told people this:

1) Eat food.
2) Not too much.
3) Mostly plants.

He created this book to unpack those three things. He writes in his book if you only take one rule from each of the three sections than you're doing good. It's really a collection of ways to look at food and how to experience food. Advice from long standing cultures, etc. It's a wonderful book that I think could free a lot of the people on this site. I haven't met a book yet that so clearly matches my own beliefs about food. Now to believe something and to act upon it are totally different. That is why I'm at MFP to learn how to more closely bring what I eat into line with what I believe. I wish more people would pick up this book.

spinach water? What is that? #26 I think

Oooooooh I like these rules!

Whoa! Waaaaaaay too many rules. Healthy living does not have to be this complicated.

This. TL;DR

Eat lots of fresh food, eat a bit of splurge food. Simple.

I like this!

But am I the only one that was grossed out when it says to 'drink the spinach water'?!

I noticed today when I bought groceries that 75 percent of them were fresh fruits and vegetables. That was something I had not noticed before and was feeling a little guilty about having so much stuff that might ruin before I get it eaten (so I like that rule about only eat stuff that will eventually ruin). The others in my groceries were frozen vegetables, chicken breast, cottage cheese, yogurt. The only guilty pleasures I had were some rice cakes, some string cheese (first cheese I had bought in over a year), some almonds and some Blue Bell Strawberry fruit bars.

That is a million times different than I used to eat. No chips, no cookies, no donuts, no Little Debbies, no candy, no sweets, no soda, little processed food. I think that must mean I'm on the right track.