Eat food, again

I have enjoyed Michael Pollan's wry perspective and wise guidance on food. As I love to pass along what I learn, especially if it might be of benefit, I'll share a few more of his words here and in the days ahead. The following is from the long essay "Unhappy Meals" (content from his book In Defense of Food) by Michael Pollan, in The New York Times Magazine, January 28, 2007.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

"That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. . . a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won't kill you, though it's better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you're much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That's what I mean by the recommendation to eat ''food.'' Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat."

[For much more, go to -- http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87, or www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ex=1327640400&en=7c85a1c254546157&ei=5088]