produced, how it’s manipulated and how it’s consumed.

In his latest book, Food Rules, Pollan says that when he embarked on his investigative food journalism quest, he wanted the answers to simple questions: “What should I eat? What do we really know about the links between our diet and health?”

But this quest turned out to be different from previous non-food-related investigations where he says that things “quickly become more complicated and ambiguous than I thought going in. Not this time. The deeper I delved into the confused and confusing thicket of nutritional science, sorting through the long-running fats versus carbs wars, the fiber skirmishes and the raging dietary supplement debates, the simpler the picture became. “

In fact, it became so simple that in Pollan’s book that followed The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, he “realized that the answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated question of what we should eat wasn’t so complicated after all, and in fact could be boiled down to just seven words:”

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

In Food Rules, Pollan expands on those seven words – but not too much. This slim paperback contains 64 “rules.” Not rigid dictums, they are eminently sensible guidelines – some even humorous – pointing the way to healthy, sane eating habits.

Pollan’s first rule is “Eat Food.” Seems obvious, but Pollan’s point is that much of what we see on grocery shelves are “highly processed concoctions designed by food scientists consisting mostly of ingredients… that no normal person keeps in the pantry, and they contain chemical additives with which the human body has not been long acquainted.”

Other Pollan rules include:

• Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food

• Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce

• Avoid food products that make health claims (the healthiest food in the super market – fresh produce – doesn’t boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don’t have the budget.)

• It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. (think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles.)

• Drink the Spinach Water (see below)

• Eat animals that have themselves eaten well

• Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it

• Treat treats as treats (not every day occurrences)

Don’t forget occasional splurges, and don’t feel guilty about them as long as they’re occasional. Pollan’s last rule is “Break the rules once in a while – especially if you’re observing the “Treat treats as treats” rule. Renowned Chicago chef Rick Bayless recommends scheduling weekly special meals which he says “help me reinforce the distinction between simple, lean everyday eating and pull-out-the-stops celebratory fare. Without both on a regular basis, life is out of balance.”