Food Rules by Michael Pollan

Food and eating is such an integral part of life that you wouldn't really think a book on rules pertaining to said would be neccessary. In truth, it isn't necessary so much as incredibly helpful! When you consider that the vast majority of human beings now live in cities or other urban areas, which makes us so far removed from the source of what we eat, it is not surprising that we can use a hand when deciding what we should be picking up for dinner. But who are we going to listen to?  The marketers? The food scientist? Politicians?? We are constantly bombarded with external stimuli trying to get our attention, "buy this product", "you need this!". This is why it's nice to have the occasional reminder that we really do have choices when it comes to what we want, and that some basic guidelines (for all that the title involves rules!) can help.

Food Rules, also by Micheal Pollan and following in the wake of In Defense of Food, is a very simple and little book that for all of that will likely stay with you a little longer than some of his other works. Not because his other titles are worse, but because it is laid out in a series of Rules, 64 to be exact, that pertain to what, where and why we eat. I think I read this in about an hour, and the best part is that he flat out says in the introduction that if you remember only 3 or 4 rules from each section (there are three of them) you will be ahead in the game. The principle of little changes amounting to big differences really resonates with me, so I truly enjoyed this, and was able to apply several of his Rules without having to even think about it.

 

In the same way that In Defence of Food was divided into three sections, Food Rules is as well. Section 1, "What should I eat? Eat Food" has some very simple yet profound rules for what we have to choose from. Rule 2: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food is fairly self explanatory. Rule 12: Shop the peripheries of the store and stay out of the middle is something I already do as most of what I have to avoid is found in the middle with the processed stuff. Rule 13: Eat foods that will eventually rot only has me worried in terms of planning for the zombie appocalypse, but I'm sure we'll figure that out if necessary (I have the trailer for World War Z on the brain, sorry.)

 

Section 2, "What kind of food should I eat? Mostly plants" deals with the "Do I pick this or that?" of eating. Rule 22: Eat mostly plants, especially leaves leads into Rule 23: Treat meat as a flavouring or special occasion food. I am a big fan of Rule 25: Eat your colours, because pretty food with lots of colours is so much more fun! I am also a big fan of Rule 43: Have a glass of Wine with dinner, and the reasons for that should be obvious.

 

Section 3, "How should I eat? Not too much" is as much the social aspects as it is the psychological set of Rules pertaining to eating and eating well. There are the physical rules, like Rule 46: Stop eating before you are full and Rule 47: Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored. There are rules like #44:Pay more, eat less and Rule 51: Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it, which when you think about it, can signify a majour shift from currently held ideals. The socially pertinent rules, however bring us back to how meals used to be: Eat Meals (Rule 55) at a table (Rule 58) in company (Rule 59).

 

So much of Food Rules really can be said to contain more traditional folk wisdom as anything else, which makes this both incredible homey and comfortable while still containing the seeds for radical change if you want it to. I do think that he saved the best rule for last though, as it really does sum everything up: Rule 64: Break the Rules once in a while!

Books, always more books

I am now and have always been a nerd. I won't say geek, because of late the connotations to that, bazinga!, are that you are, in fact, cool. Nope, I am a nerd at heart, and that hasn't really ever bothered me. As a kid, it was pretentions of grandeur and a certain snobbism, and then as an adult it was because it just didn't matter. On the contrary, I derive a great deal of solace and pleasure out of my dorkishness.

The school system that I attended as a kid was one where there were no set teachers and classes; each course had a set number of books and exercises that had to be mastered, on our own, before we could advance to the next grade level of study. There were adults present who were (ostensibly) able to help us, though  none of them had any formal educational training background and were in fact volunteers; often, getting the answer to questions took some time and frankly, most of us learned early not to bother asking but to seek out the answers ourselves. My younger siblings hated this school system, passionately; I was made for it. Being left on my own, to read and study, and eventually determine the direction of study I wanted to take could not have been a more perfect model for the way in which I work, and learn, best. It has also been the model for any course of study that I have followed in my adult life. If there was something that interested me, I would buy a book about it. Sometimes lots of books! I've been through a classical Greek period, a short lived and rather morbid Russian period, an incredible and facsinating period where all I wanted to read about was physics (!) and to a lesser degree the history of science, and I have all my classes for a certificate in introductory Herbology. I love my life!

Suffice it to say, or the reason for the reminisences, is that I don't belive that education need be reserved for a formal setting. Learning, if you are lucky, happens all the time, and curiosity should be encouraged and indulged. I'm a cat person, so we'll skip that metaphore, but I am a firm believer in the saying "Lead me not into temptation, I can find my own way." I've never had a problem understanding why the Powers That Be (religious or political) have historically controlled the institutions of education. How during changes to those regimes, the Intellegentsia were often the first to be either recruited or rounded up and the knowledge they had so often ordered be tucked away and kept out of sight. Nature, however, abhors a vacuum, and the pendulum can only swing so far. The access We have to information is possibly unprecedented in the history of humanity. I get tears in my eyes every time I think of the libraries of Alexandria and Constantinople, but your average baker and brick maker of the time wouldn't have had access to it as a matter of course. These days, your average 10 year old has some sort of electronic device that allows them practically instant access to the Internet, where they can look up all the pictures of cute cats they want.

So to say that I have been influenced by the books that I have read is probably redundant at this point. I doubt anyone would be surprised to learn that I even read about food, and not just in cook books.  Some of those books have made me do some serious thinking about not just what but also how I eat and what it means, how it is all connected. I have spent all day trying to decide which book I was going to introduce today, and I have literally only just now decided. My problem, see, is that there is a particular author whose work I greatly admire, and have learned much from, and I actually have several of his books (with a few more on my wish list, for that matter!) and I couldn't decide which one to bring up first. So, as my cats are trying to convince me of how starved they are, I am going to go with the shorter of the two. Not because I got less out of it, but more so that my cats will stop trying to climb up my legs.

Michael Pollan, according to the little bio on the dust jacket of the book, "is the author of four previous books.... A longtime contributor to The New York Times Magazine, he is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley."  In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto was the second of his books that I purchased, and the entire contents of the book can be summed up by what you see on the yellow ribbon on the cover: Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants. Sounds easy, right? Now go to the grocery store. Now go pick up a copy of the book.

What he talks about isn't anything new; on the contrary it's as much about a return. Going back to where we recognized what food is, where it comes from, how it is all connected. This isn't about shaming, or even a Luddite manifesto in disguise. I came away from this with a sene that what I wanted to do was reclaim the food I eat, that I want to share with those I love, and that I'd like to leave for my nieces and nephew. Is it thought provoking? Hells yeah! As it should be. Most of us live in cities that are so far removed from our food sources that we wouldn't recognize real food if it bit us for a change. I actually know one young lady who asked a friend of mine why his bread, a loaf of whole grain something, was brown and not white like it should be. Is it going to make you want to swear off food? Absolutely the opposite. It will help you to see what we eat, to really look at it and then go looking for the food you want. It is out there, and it's worth the effort. Just in time for those first spring shoots to pop up in a nice salad, say.

Enjoy!