Michael Pollen’s six rules for eating wisely
Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: And Eater’s Manifesto, has an article from Time Magazine on the six rules for eating wisely.
The rules:
1. Don’t eat anything your great-great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid foods containing high-fructose corn syrup
3. Spend more, eat less
4. Pay no heed to the nutritional science or health claims on packages
5. Shop at the farmer’s market
6. How you eat is as important as what you eat
So these are the rules to think about when we buy food and eat, but how are they for saving money?
#1, #4, #5 and #6 are steps that are likely to save you money. #2, avoiding HFCS, might actually be bad for the budget, since high-fructose corn syrup is cheap compared to sugar. On the other hand cutting these things out will save you money if you don’t replace them with sugary equivalents. Soda, for instance, is a big place to cut back on HFCS and save some money.
#3 is obviously telling you spend more right? Maybe not. If you reduce the volume of your food consumption enough, you might be able to overcome the expense of eating healthy food. Also keep in mind the long term costs of eating poor food, as the author notes in the health care spending stats.
While my wife and I work on our food budgeting, we will keep these rules in mind. If you’ve been thinking about changing up the way you eat, these rules are a good place to start. Another place to look if you want some recipes is Tosca Reno’s Clean Eating Diet Cookbook. I love many of the recipes in there, and I feel like the clean eating principles are very practical for a long term solution, and fall right into line with Michael Pollen’s advice, especially rule #1.
