One of the many awesome things I got to do over break was take a return trip to Ithaca, NY, where I went to college, to visit friends and my old stomping grounds. I got to spend the whole weekend hanging around with people I love and their various adorable progeny. As some of you know, one of my best friends is Ashley of (never home)maker. We’ve both started our blogs independently of one another, and our friendship dates way back to freshman year of college, but our sites have a lot in common by way of their healthy eating focuses.
Me, Ashley and Ada, the (never home)maker baby, who has a champion strong neck that likes to look everywhere!
So I was really excited when Ashley told me she had a present for me — a hard cover copy of the new, illustrated edition of Michael Pollan’s Food Rules. The publishers had sent the book to Ashley to review a few months back, and had thrown in an extra copy which she kindly passed on to me.
I love this book. I loved the idea behind the original version of the book. After writing The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in which Pollan details the central problem of the Western industrialized diet as the distance between eaters and their food, he realized that many people here have lost their way when it comes to food. No longer do we have backyard gardens and Grandma’s secret recipes — we instead have Kraft and Tyson and Atkins and television spots. People wanted guidance for how to “eat right.”
The golden rule of Pollan’s original Food Rules was simply this: Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not too Much.
The new edition of the book is broken up into three sections around those three tenants, with all the original rules detailed in gorgeous illustration by Maira Kalman, and supplemented by reader-produced rules. Some of my favorites:
- Get out of the supermarket whenever you can.
- Eat animals that have themselves eaten well.
- Have a glass of wine with dinner (yes, that’s a real rule!)
- Avoid foods you see advertised on television
What I like about all these rules (and many, many others) is that, in addition to spending time detailing good nutritional practice, Pollan and his readers in this edition, spend time detailing good food behaviors. Where to shop. How to cook. What (and whom) to be suspicious of and avoid.
At any rate, all of this is to say that I love this book so much I’ve decided to celebrate my upcoming 1000th site visit by giving away a free copy of the new, illustrated Food Rules. (Not this copy. This one’s mine, because I love it.) Sometime in the next two weeks, our little site here should hit its 1000th site visit — since I won’t be able to monitor exactly who is the 1000th visit, I’ll be taking entries and will randomly draw the winner once we hit 1000.
TO ENTER: Leave a comment on this post describing YOUR FAVORITE FOOD RULE.
GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Monday, January 23rd at 9:00PM CST
PRIZE SHIPS: USA only
ALSO: Please provide in your comment your email address or some way of contacting you (such as a link to your own website) — or, unfortunately, you cannot win.
Rules: One entry per email address is allowed. The winners will be selected using Tara’s Random Number Generator and announced Tuesday (1/24) morning.
When I was twenty years old, I watched PETA’s “Meet Your Meat” in a rhetoric class and became a vegetarian. Seven years later, I decided to start eating meat again–for ethical reasons. This blog is about that journey and all its complications, from the humane treatment of animals to labor rights and global poverty, from radical feminist cooking to local, sustainable, affordable recipes. But most of all, it’s about community, about the kitchen as the place where we all sit down together and eat.
My favorite food rule: COOK.
I like cooking.
And when you cook something yourself, it is going to be healthier than it’s fast food lookalike. Even if you cook fried chicken. Because if you at least fry the chicken yourself, you are probably not going to use artificial additives, flavors, or preservatives. You can control the amount and type of oil you use. When you cook yourself, you can control the quality of ingredients, and make humane choices as far as the animals are concerned.
I couldn’t agree more, Cristina! Not to mention, when you cook it yourself, you gain a better understanding of what it takes to make some of the stuff we eat. Ever try to cook Spaghetti-os? Probably not going to work…
UNAPPETIZING GROSSNESS BELOW…
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I’m new to caring about what I eat, so I will share my only rule so far, the rule that woke me up to eating…
-Don’t Eat Ridiculously Buttery Popcorn at the Movies-
I did this a few weeks ago… and I got very, very very sick. The amazing thing about this sickness was that the ONLY thing my body dispelled was movie butter. Lots, and lots, and lots, of movie oily butter.
And this disturbed me intensely. And it made it clear to me that food isn’t just random stuff you stick in your body that all ends up about the same way. My body literally could not process this stuff. It just threw up its hands and said ‘forget it, I give up.’
Which reminded me that I expect a lot of out of my body – to get me around, to lift stuff for me, to drive me places, to stay awake during class, to give hugs to friends, to pay attention, to keep me safe… and this moment it felt like my body was screaming at me “look what you give me to work with! How do you expect me to operate properly when you don’t give me any materials I need?!? I’m going on strike.”
It was a huge, strange wakeup call.
Now I’m addicted to your blog instead of movie popcorn! Yay!
Hahahaha, oh my God, Ariane, that is SO gross, but also kind of awesome as a wake-up call. You’re so right about remembering that our body is a mechanism that requires fuel to operate — and not all that fuel is created equal.
My favorite food rule is eating fresh, local food as much as possible (not so much that I won’t eat citrus during a long Minnesota winter), and eating foods in as close to their whole state as possible.
Great rule, Rebecca! Especially the inclusion of — as much as possible — nobody can live in absolutes.
My favorite food rule is to eat real food. Cooking with real, whole ingredients is not only more tasty, but cheaper and healthier than processed junk.
And I’d MUCH rather eat (and bake!) homemade treats with real butter and from-scratch ingredients than some sort of sugar free fat free diet treat. Blech.
The book looks beautiful, by the way!
Buy local, fresh, *often*. Maybe daily.
A problem with buying real food — especially local organic food — can be the price, and the fact that the food goes bad in the fridge after a few days and you end up throwing half of it out. Well. If you can find a convenient place, especially on your way to/from work/school/whatever, just plan for the night’s meal en route and buy what you need for that day, that day. Making daily stops at the local grocer or co-op can be much more cost-effective than trying to work too far ahead, when it comes to fresh fruits and veggies.
Marissa — it’s John at ISU. In case you need to contact me.