Zeno's Bar & Grill

I knew it was going to be a good day despite the sub-freezing temps when I pulled out the magazine section of the New York Times and discovered that the cover story was by my hero, Michael Pollan. I've read pretty much everything he's written, yet he managed to make me rethink my eating habits yet again. In his article he first gave three simple rules for eating healthy: 1. Eat food. 2. Not too much. 3. Mostly plants.

The mostly plants part seems like new advice. His book The Omnivores Dilemma didn't make that distinction, but his article makes a lot of common sense arguments for the third rule. Apparently the advice that the citizens of the United States were given in the late 70's about reducing saturated-fat intake was originally intended to be cut down on red meat and dairy products. This obviously didn't sit well with the cattle industry and so led to the more convoluted advice of cutting down on saturated fat and to what Mr. Pollan refers to as nutritionism. Hence we have all these products that proclaim that they have (Omega-3!, Oat Bran!, Whole Grains!) or don't have (Fat!, Carbs!, Trans-Fats!) whatever diet fad is going around.

At the end of the article he expands these three rules to nine rules. 1-3) Basically break down the Eat Food rule - eat real whole foods, not processed fake food, not food with -labels proclaiming their healthfulness. 4.Get out of the supermarket in favor of farmer's markets. 5. Pay more, eat less. 6. Eat mostly plants. 7. Eat according to the rules of a traditional culture. 8. Cook. 9. Eat lots of different kinds of foods.

Eating more and different plants is what I'm working on. I'm going to try to work my way down the produce aisle at Whole Foods and try everything there at least once. I'm sure my kids will be thrilled!

--Kelly