Michael Pollan is plagiarizing my mind

I found myself saying that the other day while talking about Michael Pollan's new book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. Nothing personal Michael, but there are some ideas in there that relate closely to what I have been planning to write either in my thesis (which, sadly, is still just in my mind) or to a lesser extent in a different sort of manifesto that I plan to write. The elusive thesis, of course, is really about the cultural and spiritual place of food and its relationship to health and sustainability. It's about caring and thinking about what you eat — eating mindfully, you might say — so that all the rest (nutrition, rural livelihoods, community vibrancy, social relations, culture, etc.) just falls into place without use having to be so conscious of it. If we are mindful of our food, what it is, how it got to us, who grew it, how they grew it, who's handled it in between and what they did with it, we'll probably eat things that are good for us, good for the farmers, and good for the ecological life of the planet. My not insignificant job is to try to figure out how to go about making this the norm. I realize this is a somewhat radical departure from my dietetics and epidemiology training, but what can you do?

When I talk about what I do, people inevitably ask me what they should be eating. Over time, I've heard myself repeating many of the same things. I started to compile an unofficial manifesto in my mind of how I think people should eat. A colleague and friend from the Schumacher Centre for Development in India suggested I write it down in an article for one of the Delhi newspapers because he thought it was useful stuff for people to hear, and most people had no idea about. My roommate is encouraging me to create a website information about food, health, culture, and sustainability. These ideas, and a few others that are still being filtered through the maze of my mind, were close to being written down when I read Pollan's fabulous new book.

So for what it's worth, here is my own set of guidelines for how and what to put in your body:

• Eat things that taste and feel good, and enjoy them.
• Eat foods, not brands.
• Eat food, not nutrients.
  
• Eat foods with as little packaging as possible, preferably none. Avoid eating things that come in a box.
  
• If it has more than 5 ingredients on the label, don't eat it.
• If you can't identify or pronounce an ingredient, don't eat it.
  
• If an ingredient name includes a number or an acronym, it's not a food, it's a substance.
  
• Don't be afraid of fat or carbs. They are not evil. They are your friends.
  
• If it seems strange that it doesn't need refrigeration, be wary. (I have seen various forms of bacon, French fries, cheese, and cream in the aisles of grocery stores.)
• Don't eat anything without a shelf life. Real food rots.
  
• Avoid too many white foods. Eat foods with colour, but not dye.
• If it makes a health claim, be suspicious.
  
• It's made to be microwaved, don't eat it.
• If it's fortified, think about why that is necessary, and find something that actually contains those nutrients.
• "Improved" on a label really means "less bad."
  
• If it seems impossible to make at home (culinary skills notwithstanding), it's not real food.
• Run screaming from high fructose corn syrup (aka fructose, corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, golden syrup, .... the list goes on).
  
• If the ingredients for a recipe have ingredients themselves, it's not cooking but home assembly (kind of like "building" IKEA furniture).
• Avoid the middle aisles of the supermarket, or better yet, avoid the supermarket altogether.
  
• Visit a farm. Hug a farmer.
• Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group, buying club, or go to a farmers' market.
• Eat as many different things as you possibly can.
• If it seems too cheap, it probably is.
  
• Eat mindfully.
• Eat with people you love.

Side note: I should clarify here that I am not actually accusing MP of plagiarism. I love his writings. That title is just something that came out of my mouth and I liked the way it sounded. I'm actually quite glad that these ideas are not as freakish as they might have seemed a few years ago, largely thanks to folks like MP. And just to clarify, all the stuff above is from my own mind and not a book.