Food Rules

Yes, in my opinion food does RULE! I love food. In fact I think about food ALL THE TIME!
The "Food Rules" I'm talking about today, though, is the title of Micheal Pollan's book. I ended up purchasing it last week because I had been eyeing it for months. The reason I hadn't bought it before is because you can basically read it and get all the information you need right in the bookstore, but I decided I wanted to have it as a reference book at home and it really wasn't too expensive. Anyways, I've wanted to write about it for two reasons: 1) I've been taking on some bad eating habits lately and I need to head back towards the lifestyle of eating like I used to do which focuses around the ideas in this book and 2) I want to share the ideas in this book in case you hadn't heard of them because they seriously changed my life for better.

Some quick background info about me and food for those of you who don't know me: I used to be a HUGE "dieter" and my weight has fluctuated up and down ever since I started dieting in high school up until about a year and half ago when I adopted the ideas in this book. Throughout those 10-15 years I would jump from the "no carb" diet, to Weight Watchers, to even a diet I named myself called the "WWGD Diet" which stands for "What Would Giada Do?" and is named after Giada de Laurentiis from Food Network. Anyways, what I FINALLY came to realize about a year and a half ago is that dieting sucks and I was sick of consuming all my free time worrying about how many calories, fat grams, sugar, etc. I was consuming (and yes, I was seriously OBSESSED!). At this point in my life I decided I was going to eat what I wanted, as long as it was natural, meaning no preservatives, and I was not allowed to think or even look at calories anymore. Well, that was probably the best decision I've ever made because once I did that I began to relax about the foods I ate but was surprisingly still able to ENJOY what I was eating. On top of that, I lost the last five pounds I had been wanting to lose without even trying and had a healthy pregnancy where I only gained 20 pounds and lost all of them seriously within one week of having my daughter. Yes, that REALLY surprised me! So... if you're like the way I used to be and are jumping from diet to diet or always thinking you need to lose 5 more pounds, you might want to check this book out. It seriously could change your life when it comes to food and make you a happier, healthier person without a lot of sacrifice.

So here's a quick summary of what this book is about. Michael Pollan is the guy who wrote "Omnivore's Delemma" and it all about not eating processed foods and eating foods that are organic and natural. This means you can eat REAL cheese, REAL butter, REAL chocolate chip cookies (if you make them yourself, of course). No more Lean Cuisines, "spray butter" and baked chips. You can eat anything you want as long as it comes from the ground and if it's not, then as long as it doesn't have more than 5 ingredients listed on the product and you can pronounce and recognize it as a "real" food. Yep, it's that simple!

In his book he divides his "rules" into three parts: What should I eat?, What kind of food should I eat? and How should I eat?.
I highly suggest you check this book out the next time you see it at the bookstore. Like I stated above, you technically can read it within 10 minutes so you don't even need to buy it, but it's nice to have as a reference.

I'm going to leave you with a few of my favorite rules, which may intrigue you to read more:

*Eat only foods that will eventually rot.

*Don't ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.

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

*Have a glass of wine with dinner. (YES!!!!!)

The two hardest rules for me?

*Eat slowly

*Always leave something on your plate

The most important rule in my opinion?

*Break the rules once in while (This one is HUGE! That means, yes, you can still have french fries every once in a while or have more than one glass of wine every once in a while, and even Dairy Queen once in a while. Just make sure it's not more than once in a while. He says in this book that some people choose to have treats on days that start with the letter "S" which I think is a great idea. Having what you consider as "treats" two days a week instead of seven makes a huge difference!)

Hope this has intrigued some of you to check out this book. I highly recommend it.

Happy Eating (because eating IS one of the best things in the world)!