Simple rules for eating healthily

Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

These simple rules for healthy eating are expanded in Michael Pollan's new book, Food Rules: An eater's manual (Penguin, pbk, $20)Author of the groundbreaking Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, he has produced this little book of slogans to help us eat healthily.

You won't find confusing buzz words like saturated fat, antioxidants, carbohydrates and so on in it - these obfuscate what should be straightforward, were it not for the food industry and the "edible, foodlike substances" it manufactures and markets, he says.

His rules encourage you to avoid these highly processed concoctions mostly derived from corn and soy which contain numerous chemical additives.

Basically, his message is to eat real food, cooked by a person in a kitchen, not by a machine supervised by someone in a white hat in a factory.

Some of my favourites are:
- Avoid food products containing ingredients that a year-three school pupil cannot pronounce.

- Avoid food products that make health claims.

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

- If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.

- Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

- Treat meat as a flavouring or a special occasion food.

- Eat well-grown food from healthy soil.

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

- Have a glass of wine with dinner.

- Buy smaller glasses and plates.

- Do all your eating at a table.

- Cook.

- Break the rules once in a while.

Freebies
The Otago Daily Times has six copies of Food Rules to give away.

To enter the draw for one, write your name, address and daytime phone number on the back of an envelope and send it to "Food rules", Editorial Features, Response Bag 500010 Dunedin, or email playtime@odt.co.nz with "Food Rules" in the subject line, to arrive before February 9.