Food Rules: Review and Summary Notes

Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan

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Review

This book gives a collection of short, memorable heuristics on how to eat for health.

For a longer, more evidence-based book on why these ideas are true, see instead Pollan’s other book In Defense of Food

“Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.”

“Eat Food” means eat real, nutritionally dense food that exists in nature, not pre-processed “food” that your grandma won’t recognize as “food”. If the food decays quickly, it means that it’s packed with nutrients that microorganisms and insects are competing against you to eat. Food with a long shelf-life lack such enticement.

“Not Too Much” means do your eating at a table, with other people, not alone, not in the car, not while walking, etc. It means paying more for less—shelling out for fewer but higher quality ingredients.

“Mostly Plans” means think of meat as a seasoning or a special occasion food, not the main event.