Michael Pollan's Twelve Commandments for Serious Eaters
From his new book:In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto:
1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce."
3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."
4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."
5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."
6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."
7. "Pay more, eat less."
8. "Eat a wide variety of species."
9. "Eat food from animals that eat grass."
10. "Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food."
11. "Eat meals and eat them only at tables."
12. "Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure."
I think it's the Chowhound credo too. Sounds good to me!
MSK
Feb 01, 2008 05:38PM
i've been preaching this stuff to my clients, friends & family for years - i'm tempted to forward this to everyone just to witness the collective groans & eye rolling :)
the biggest problem is that the people who really need to hear - and would benefit most from - this advice are NOT the ones who read michael pollan!
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Most of these are common sense and do make sense (though I am not sure it is fair in these economic times to tell one to pay more, and I don't think it is necessarily true that one must pay more to follow the other guidelines...)
From a health standpoint, number 11 is a mixed bag, IMO. On the one hand, eating only at tables helps one focus on the food and avoid mindless eating (and I am a terrible offender, as I do like to have dinner in front of the TV sometimes...)
but what is the deal with eating meals? No snacks? No reaching for an orange to eat during a hike? No gelato? No egg tartlets in Chinatown? No oysters at the bar (or at the Hog Island stand at the Farmer's Market?) ....well, I could go on and on and on, but one gets the idea: that part doesn't sound like the Chowhound credo to me...
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It is a nice, well-intentioned list, but hardly a manifesto for all Chowhounds. I think a number of people will take exception to the notion "pay more and eat less" just as they are quibbling over "meal vs snack" eaten "sitting, not standing" ....
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Regarding #7, I think that Michael Pollan would argue we'd all pay less, in the long run, by focusing on why it costs more to shop at the farmers' markets than at the supermarket. Sure, there are economies of scale for the big producers, but the larger story is all of the hidden costs we pay for the supposedly cheaper food. We pay for the farm subsidies for the cheap corn, we pay for the costs of the environmental degradation from the fertilizer run-off, and we really pay through the hose for the diabetes from the massive overload of high fructose corn syrup in almost every product. By paying attention to the real costs of the food we eat, perhaps people will demand that the actual costs are really reflected in the sticker price, so that people can make more rational (and economical) decisions about their food.
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I don't know why, and I'm probably wrong, but my original interpretation of #7 was "support local"
.......local produce, non chain restaurants, local grocers....all which tend to cost more.
Choose that instead of masses amounts of low quality box store offerings.
I'm not sure that is what he meant but that's how I prefer to look at it.
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I took him to mean "pay more, eat less" to refer to meats - that we should not eat such meat-centric dishes, and that we should pay attention to buying meats from humane, local sources.
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I took it to mean "don't supersize" - skip the huge portions of poor-quality food and have smaller portions of the good stuff.
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Funny how so many got a different meaning. I took it to mean pay for quality, not quantity. In fact, the first thing that came to mind was, "Better a very small USDA prime steak than a porterhouse from WalMart!" That I agree with! Just can't afford kobe beef. Well, I could if they'd sell it in smaller amounts than a pound. "I'd like a half ounce steak, please." '-)
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I think everyone would have their own opinions and ideas about what a serious eater is, which may also be different in different parts of the world.
Not meant to be comprehesive or critical:
re: 2 -- I 'm bad at language, and there are often everyday ingredients from foreign cultures that I can't pronounce (or pronounce properly). Certain types of fruits from Latin/South America for example.
re: 9 -- that would biased against essentially all seafood, and it means no jamon iberico from acorn fed pigs.
re: 11 -- that means no street food from carts, which are a big tradition in many cultures.
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3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."
So, what exactly does Pollan have against Space Food Sticks? I had a special hole drilled in my astronaut's helmet just to accommodate them, and now he's telling me they're bad for me?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPZ8HH...
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My first thought about #3 was that honey is an obvious exception, which doesn't invalidate the rule.
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I'll buy into 9 out of 12 of Pollan's food Commandments, which, at 75%, eclipses my earlier endorsement of 7 of those older Commandments.
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My grandmother would never recognize tofu as food and a dear friend's grandmother told us bananas were poisonous. The thought of our eating chicken feet would horrify her. Flax, where I come from, is something you grow to sell to the companies that produce house paint. I've never been able to pronounce pho without eliciting laughter. Whole grains, teas, spices are often in the middle of the grocery store--at least, where I currently do most of my shopping. Salt doesn't rot. I guess pork, poultry, most wild game, including river, lake and sea-dwelling creatures, would be out of the question--which pretty much limits my ability to eat a "wide variety" of animal species. Our farmers markets are pretty well buttoned up and will be until about late May since the ground has been frozen solid now for about 2 1/2 months. But, maybe that's not so bad because I can still "pay more" to shop at Whole Foods, rather than at the seasonally available Farmers Markets where I pay less. I guess a picnic on a blanket in the park would be strictly off-limits?
Sorry to be so obnoxious, but the first time I heard this "don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" it immediately got my back up. How well does he know my grandmother, or many of our grandmothers who may never have traveled far from the small towns in which they lived? Which generation of grandmothers is he referring to anyway? I understand Pollen's message and, for the most part agree with it, but I actually feel like he's simultaneously overcomplicating and oversimplifying his message with his overly clever credo and his pithy "Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables." Also, I think he's very coastal-centric. Has he spent any time in the Upper Midwest with its ultra short growing season, aside from visiting industrial pig and corn farms? Perhaps he should spend time dining at the farmers' tables.
Really, my rule of thumb is "beware of rules of thumb."
I actually have IDOF on reserve at the library and, maybe, I'll feel less talked down to when I actually read this information in context, but, everything I'd heard in interviews and reviews and so on hasn't really made me warm to his attempts at turning his message into a soundbite. Or a dozen soundbites.
~TDQ
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I also really disagree with #1. Do I need to have a Japanese grandmother to enjoy sushi?
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Maybe it should be "don't eat anything that wouldn't be recognized as food by SOMEbody's grandparents."
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Yes, there would have been a way for him to edit the grandma commandment to make his point even more clear, (but, for instance, even then, it doesn't define what "generation" of grandma, even if you're just referring to the U.S., he means--what if you're 18 and your grandmother is 46 and grew up on Kraft Mac & Cheese, Top Ramen, Wonderbread and Oscar Meyer Bologna--are those okay to eat ? or by "grandma" is he thinking the grandma of an American Baby Boomer?)
But, really, this is what I meant by he's simultaneously oversimplifying and overcomplicating his message. Almost every one of his commandments can easily be interpreted to mean the opposite of what he intended, depending on the situation. I think he's trying to say, "Don't eat a lot of overly-processed foods with a lot of preservatives in them." ( Fantastic advice, I think.) It would have been so much more straight forward if he said that, instead of the excessively clever first three commandments.
I wonder if he went to press too soon with this book and his half-baked, on-the-surface witty, imprecise commandments.
~TDQ
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"I wonder if he went to press too soon with this book and his half-baked, on-the-surface witty, imprecise commandments." Whew TDQ! that's a pretty harsh criticism considering you haven't actually READ the book yet.
I finished IDOF a week ago and I can assure you that those "Commandments" do not appear in the overly simplified form that the OP presents us with. They appear at the end of the book and each "commandment" actually has at least a few sentences explaining what each one means. Further, the roughly 185 fascinating pages one reads to get to that point are what make Pollan's "commandments" possible to be presented in such a concise form at the end. Believe me, when you get there, you will understand exactly what Pollan means by #1, as well as the remaining 11.
That being said, after following the press leading up to the release of this book, I didn't feel like I really needed to actually read the book. Based on the way I eat and feed my family, I thought it would be like preaching to the choir. I did read it though and must say that this book is a fabulous de-bunking of the myths foisted upon us by the "Food Scientists" and the rush of the food processors to capitalize on their bogus findings - all much to the detriment of our national health. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Hope you don't have to wait too long to read it...as of this morning there were 22 copies of the book in the Rhode Island library system and 90 holds on it.
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Yeah, it's harsh and like I said, maybe I'll change my mind once I actually read the book, but these are things he's saying in interviews, too, so he shouldn't be any less accountable for his ideas if he's putting them out there for public consumption.
~TDQ
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Don't forget that the main purpose of all these interviews is to publicize the book. He wants you to buy it, therefore he's not going to give it all away for free on NPR.
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I'm not listening to him on NPR, but reading the interviews he gave the NYT, the San Francisco Chronicle and a couple of other publications. It's all well and good to make a buck, but, in the meantime the public is latching onto his oh-too-clever, overly simplistic sound bites. Personally, I just think that does more harm than good. The people who are really going to read his book, you know, the "serious" eaters, already know this stuff.
~TDQ
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would anybody's granny recognize foam?
or would she try to skim it?
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LOL! Thanks - best giggle I've had all day! My guess would be "skim it".
Would be a shame, I've had some amazing foam before!
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I think "Commandments" is stupid choice of word.
FWIW, #9 clearly refers to mammals (not fish) raised on what they should be eating.... out on the pastures. I can groove to that one.
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Since we're referencing religious terms for food, I'd rather worship Barry Glassner's less dogmatic The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food is Wrong.
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Where's wine?
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Oh my Grandmother would recognize wine!
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Well, if wines were also considered, #3 would rule out madeira et al., given their immortality.
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Twinkies don't rot.
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In all seriousness its all basic common sense. It is nice to be reminded of it from time to time.
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It's a tough call but like all 'statements' you have to take it with a grain of salt and make it adaptable to your life. The family of 4 on 1 salary (low-middle income) is probably not going to be buying arugula at the Farmer's Market. But it it is possible to eat healthy on a budget - just not necessarily always local. Life is about happy mediums. Commandments are not. And wine is an absolute requirement (my Grandmother drank it until she died at 105 years old... but she's French... She also ate goose fat, lardons, and tons of things that many people would shrink away from in North America!)
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In "grandma's day" the family of 4 on 1 salary budget like would have had a garden and grown their own arugula!
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Good point... too bad crappy apartments in Toronto don't have that! :)
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Some tongue in cheek comments:
1 - Lower East side food would lead to 20mg of Lipitor
2 - But jfood wants to try more SE Asian cooking, i.e Pho.
3 - Ok this is a good one
4 - Everything at some point has a health claim
5 - Fresh foods are normally around the edges, hard to argue
6 - Jfood would starve because there are none in his neighborhood
7 - Just eat less and better
8 - Agreed
9 - Subset of 8, but jfood likes veal
10 - food does not grow well in snow, but in the summer you should at least try, if you can. But the the deer and raccons eat the food, and since thet eat grass as well (see #9) should jfood kill them and throw them on the grill?
11 - Nah. Tailgating is a good example.
12 - Last phrase is the CH credo
Now a few more:
1 - Do not eat something because others do. eat what you think is good
2 - Try a wide variety of foods
3 - Try various cuisines
4 - Understand that people do not like things you like, since you do not like things other people like.
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Re jfood's number 10: I can't speak to raccoons, but the only problem I see with the deer is that grilling may not be the best way to prepare.... :-)
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how about swapping smoking for grilling? And the raccons in CT are the size of German Shepards recently.
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I find that my 2 Great Pyrenees do a great job of keeping the deer, bears and bunnies out of my garden. Unfortunately, last summer, they tried to chase a skunk out of the garden! They both smelled so bad I could taste it!
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I agree with jfood's responses, but really my problem is with the fundamental problem of the notion that guidelines( for anything serious) can be winnowed to 10 or 12 cute/clever sayings (which in this case could have been said better in more straightforward language, i.e; say what you mean). basically I see these as penetrating glimpses into the obvious.
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I have found #1 a very good place to start conversations with my parents (born in the 30's) -- what did they eat growing up? I found out that Mom's family raised their own chickens and rabbits (in addition to the garden that I knew about). My dad was in charge of the victory garden at his house, and grew lots of potatoes. They ate all sorts of cuts of cheap meat, including organ meat. Eating out was a rarity. It's surprising how much our family diet changed by the 60's... we still ate more home-prepared meals (including fresh vegetable) than most, but certainly no rabbit or brains! And the garden consisted of a few tomato plants.
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Every single criticism, objection, and quibble raised in this thread is addressed by Pollan in the text of the book. Sound bytes are great at getting ideas into the minds of the general public, but they are not meant to substitute a thorough, well reasoned argument.
Speaking as a food-politics junkie, I learned a *lot* while reading IDOF. Like many of you, I had already reached all of Pollan's conclusions before I read this book. However, the reasoning behind Pollan's conclusions - the well researched and well argued exploration of the history, politics, and science of food and nutrition in the United States - is why this book is great. These arguments have never, to my knowledge, been posed by a journalist before, and they are widely unknown amongst the food cognoscenti.
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I'm really not understanding the problem people are having with #1. All he means is to eat "real" food, not chem lab creations. I think he's assuming thatyour granny's kitchen isn't equipped with a variety of centrifuges, etc. His recs are common sense. Of course he has to simplify his message--you can't get overly in depth in a short interview or newspaper article.
Firecooked's comments are a very interesting look at the changes our diets and menus have undergone. We've expanded in many areas (e.g. exploring new non-European and lesser known Euro. cuisines, we are willing to try new ingredients and new techniques), but in other respects we seem to be adopting a shrinking diet (in terms of ingredients, not quantity!) Like Firecooked examples of no rabbits and no brains. Of the change in home gardening. My parents (European immigrants, born late 1930s) seem to have been "closer" to the origins of their meals. My dad, who grew up in the country, had a family who butchered hogs, grew most vegetables, made their own sauerkraut, raised chickens and rabbits. And they weren't farmers! My mom's family grew up in the city, but they did have a small garden. They regularly went to the woods to gather berries and chanterelles. I don't grow a damn thing except herbs (I dislike gardening). But the funny thing is, my mom (who never liked cooking) just took to the convenience foods of the 1960s and 1970s. I practically grew up on Chef Boyardee, packaged cereals (my favorites were Quisp and Quake), Tang, Space Food Sticks, Hamburger and Tuna Helper, iceberg lettuce with bottled dressing. I could eat all that crap but for some reason, they wouldn't let me watch The Monkees on Tv :-)
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My personal problem with number 1 is the fact that my grandparents and great grandparents still lived in the 20th century, and ate many "bad" foods and still lived to a ripe old age. Wholewheat bread and pasta and brown rice weren't considered healthful foods. They were just considered inferior foods and the white versions were standard. Despite the doomsayers, there is very little diabetes in my family.
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Me too. I was very close to my great-grandmother, who died in the 1980s, when I was 12 years old. She and my great-grandfather (who lived even longer, and died in '93) ate lard their whole lives. They drank wine of questionable quality, used pork fat as flavoring for chicken, beans, and who knows what else, and ate plenty of white bread (never "American" bread, though). They ate fried breaded veal like it was going out of style, and habitually drowned their green vegetables in olive oil (NOT extra virgin, btw). My great-grandmother drank espresso well into her '80s, and baked at least two pound cakes per week. I don't think they ever heard of "whole wheat pasta".
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And if you read the book, your grandparent's (seemingly unhealthy) diet is potentially more healthful than the over-processed, over engineered, nutritionally-limited diet we're eating today. Pollan's point is that we think science has deduced exactly what constitutes a healthful diet when, in fact, quite the opposite might be (and probably is) true.
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While I recognize the need to simplify for a sound bite, a extra words would have clarified things
1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
Like HFCS
Otherwise it is too broad and relies on the smaller food universe available to a good many of our grandmothers.
2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce."
Like dimethylpolysiloxane (in a McDonald's snack wrap)
Otherwise it limits a lot of ethnic cuisine
3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."
Like soda
Otherwise it eliminates things like dried beans or honey (still good after being found in Egyptian tombs) And really ... everything goes bad ... even Twinkies
4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."
LIke low fat cookies
Otherwise it could mean produce, high fiber veggies, milk, green tea, etc, etc, etc
5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."
Avoiding processed foods
Otherwise you are eliminating items like canned fish, olive oil, etc. In my Raley's organic food and produce is in the center of the market. Also, bakeries are often on the peripheries.
6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."
Clear, but not always practicle.
7. "Pay more, eat less."
Avoid fast food value menus
8. "Eat a wide variety of species."
Clear enough
9. "Eat food from animals that eat grass."
Avoid factory animals
Otherwise, could mean no pork ... pigs don't eat grass, do they? What about chickens? Chickens don't eat grass.
10. "Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food."
Clear enough
BUT, the soil in some neighborhoods can be contaminated with chemicals like lead.
11. "Eat meals and eat them only at tables."
No mindless snacking in front of a tv or computer.
Otherwise. it could eliminate healthy small snacks.
12. "Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure."
Clear enough
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The simple Chowhound credo: Eat what tastes good.
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Eeeeks! Wait, there's a CREDO??? Nobody told me that when I signed up!
* apologetically resigns her Chowhound membership*
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re #5:
doritos are not on the periphery of the supermarket.
therefore, must.....reject.....manifesto.
oh, and re "pay more, eat less", i'm waiting for my subsidy check from mr. pollan.
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This thread is really annoying me. While the OP tried to simplify the conclusions Pollan reached in his book, many replies are just trying to be difficult and combative and are simply jumping to the most simple conclusions based on a desire to be argumentative.
What Pollan actually calls these are rules for escaping the Western diet (specifically processed food and factory farmed produce and meats) and simple rules to help Westerners start redefining our relationship with food - including helping us to understand that engineered, processed "food" is not food. Each of these "rules" has paragraphs of info that follows that adds context to the headings.
Here’s hoping I am not breaking any copyright laws:
1. Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
Taken literally, half of what I eat wouldn't qualify. However, while my great grandmother wouldn't recognize sushi, she would certainly recognize rice and fish. Tofu has existed for thousands of years (good), tofu hot dogs have not (bad). Taken in context, I believe many 'hounds would agree with this.
2. Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup.
This, again, in context is a plea to avoid processed foods. That doesn't mean to avoid the lentil soup I made last night which included 8 or 9 ingredients.
3. Avoid food products that make health claims [on its package].
Once again, processed foods. He speaks at length about how processed foods are manipulated through enrichment to add the latest nutritional craze (oat bran in the 80's, folic acid today). Foods that need to shout health claims from it's packaging is, more than likely, not actually healthy.
4. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
OK, so my supermarket has Oscar Meyer bologna on the periphery - does that mean I should eat that? No. But this is where the whole foods - fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, dairy. Yes there are processed foods on the periphery. Limit your intake of them. To the point of the healthy products in the interior of the store, 2 of the 3 cans of tuna I have in my cabinet contain soy. My pickles contain HFCS. My jarred olives have lactic acid and preservatives. All processed foods. I (and he) are not saying that there are not healthy foods elsewhere in the supermarket, but if it is canned, jarred or boxed, the chances are high that it had been tampered with. But since HFCS has insidiously made it's way into previously healthy products (yogurt), he suggests a more radical rule:
5. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. Farmer's markets, CSAs, local farms. I am lucky to have access to these options and the means to pay the (sometimes) higher prices. While this is not true of everyone, it is a call to make this kind of food more accessible.
6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. We need plants to survive, we don't need meat. Like many cultures, we need to make meat a side dish and start eating more of the vitamin-rich plant foods.
7. You are what your food eats, too. Food animals are fed to ensure they grow faster and bigger, produce more milk and eggs at the expense of the nutritional value of the final product. Wouldn't you rather eat something that's been raised to ensure the highest quality product? The point of eating is to nourish, not just to stuff our bellies full.
8. Eat like an omnivore. The average American eats far less variety that they did a generation or two ago. Our diets are full or wheat, corn and soy, leading to nutritional deficiencies. The greater variety of species we eat, the healthier we will be.
9. Eat well-grown foods from healthy soil. Same argument as above - produce grown with the goal of better nutrition, not higher yields, prettier product, or longer shelf-life.
10. Eat wild foods when you can.
11. Eat more like the French, Italians, Japanese, Indians, Greeks... (traditional diets)
12. Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism.
13. Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet. It’s not the olive oil, the red wine, the fish, the seaweed, or any other single nutrient