More Food for Thought: Food Rules Redux

This morning I finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and by far my favorite part was the last 65 pages, in which Pollan explains in depth his main tenets of healthy eating: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

He helps distinguish between items in the grocery store that are real food, and items that are merely food products (e.g. if it contains ingredients that are unfamiliar or difficult to pronounce, it's probably not a real food). He digs into the idea of eating "mostly plants" - and mostly plant leaves (where the nutrients are), not seeds (which are designed to store energy/calories, not nutrients).

He also offers some interesting rules of thumb about how to eat, which I've boiled down to three basic ideas that I'm hoping to implement in our house:

1. PAY MORE; EAT LESS. - Highly processed food is cheaper, but not nearly as nutritious, flavorful, or environmentally-friendly. Good food costs more, but it's worth it, both in terms of finances and your health. And when possible, reduce portion sizes. You don't always have to "clean your plate" (more on that in #3 below).

Consider this: Harvard economists have found that the less time it takes to prepare food (cook, clean up, etc.), the more we tend to eat of it (p.186). Buying whole foods (instead of microwaveable food products) makes us slow down, consult a cookbook, and actually prepare a meal - and we're more likely to choose an appropriate portion size and save leftovers for later.

Plus, more expensive foods usually taste better. "The better the food, the less of it you need to eat in order to feel satisfied. ... as the French have shown, you don't need a lot of food to have a rich food experience" (p.188). And Pollan points out that spending a little more on good food now might allow us to spend much less on health care later.

2. DO ALL YOUR EATING AT A TABLE; TRY NOT TO EAT ALONE. - The Western diet has divorced the ideas of food as fuel for the body and meals as a part of culture. Too often we eat alone, at our desks, or in our cars. We focus on just getting the right nutrients or following the latest fad diet. Up until a century or two ago there were no fad diets, only traditional diets centered around families and friends cooking & eating together.

Pollan writes, "... the French eat very differently than we do. They seldom snack, and they eat most of their food at meals shared with other people. They eat small portions and don't come back for seconds. And they spend considerably more time eating than we do.* Taken together, these habits contribute to a food culture in which the French consume fewer calories than we do, yet manage to enjoy them far more. ... the French gift for extracting more food experience from fewer calories may help explain why the French are slimmer and healthier than we are" (pp.182-183).

*I found this to be especially true when I studied abroad in Avignon. Our group of American students went out to dinner one night at a small, local, family-owned restaurant, and the five-course meal lasted more than three hours. The courses weren't served in rapid succession; instead, the dishes from one course were cleared, a palate-cleanser was served, and we enjoyed our conversation for several minutes before the next course came out. It was also clear that the restaurant did not care about "turning over" their tables quickly (a main goal in American restaurants), since there was only one seating for dinner. Once a party was seated, they were there for the entire evening.

So the French paradox might not be so confounding after all. Sure, their meals include more saturated fats and alcohol than ours do, but they eat those meals more slowly, over longer periods of time, and in the company of others. It's not so much WHAT they eat, but HOW they eat it that makes the difference.

Note: Pollan points out that desks do not count as tables, so I should probably try to pry myself away from my desk at work while eating lunch. I'm guessing that Pollan would also say that folding TV trays don't count as tables either, so maybe I'll suggest that Topher & I start eating dinner at the dining room table again, instead of on the couch while watching Law & Order.

3. CONSULT YOUR GUT; EAT SLOWLY. - Psychologists have found that Americans tend to have a "unit bias - we tend to believe that however big or small the portion served, that's the proper amount to eat" (p.183).

Pollan writes, "The people of Okinawa, one of the longest-lived and healthiest populations in the world, practice a principle they call hara hachi bu: Eat until you are 80 percent full" (p.185). Yes, this might be a bit difficult at first (what exactly does "80 percent full" feel like?), but slowing down and getting more in tune with your body isn't a bad thing.

According to Pollan, "Supposedly it take twenty minutes before the brain gets the word that the belly is full; unfortunately most of us take considerably less than twenty minutes to finish a meal, with the result that the sensation of feeling full exerts little if any influence on how much we eat. ... Perhaps it is their long, leisurely meals that give the French the opportunity to realize when they're full" (p.193).