Michael Pollan on 'Food Rules'

Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma," has a new book out which is basically a guide to his food philosophy. Called "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual," it contains 64 rules for eating wisely.

Slashfood: How did you come about the idea for this book?
MP: I got the idea from a couple of doctors after "In Defense of Food" came out. They were saying they would love to have a pamphlet of very simple, memorable rules to help out patients. We don't have time to give them a big nutritional lecture, and they don't need to know all the science behind it but they do need some guidance. People are very confused about what to eat. I thought that kind of chimed with the work I was doing, leading to the conclusion that nutrition was a lot simpler than people have been led to believe both by the media, the government, the food industry and this whole blizzard of health claims out there and this controversy over fats and carbs was really obscuring some pretty simple truths. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." So the rules help people navigate the supermarket, navigate the restaurant menu and navigate their own kitchens.

Read the rest of our interview and get a sneak peek into Michael Pollan's new book, "Food Rules."
Slashfood: It's sort of one of those dummy books.
MP: Yeah, I've always thought the titles of those books were a little insulting to the reader. Very smart people are very confused about food too, but in some ways that is what this book is. It's the distillation of 10 years of work, reporting on food, agriculture and health and just boiling it down. It's a book you can read in an hour. Online it costs 6 bucks. It's really just to reach everybody and hopefully relax [them] about food. Being anxious about your diet doesn't make you healthy either.

Slashfood: I think your book is really needed, but it's sort of sad that we need to tell people to eat more vegetables. It's stuff we were told as kids.
MP: It is sad that we should need such common sense, but there's a very good reason for it. Nutritional science, which is very well intentioned and has been trying to get to the bottom of what you need to eat to be healthy, has been hijacked by the food industry, which takes every new study and turns it into a clever way to sell processed food. Processed food is the most profitable food in the supermarket, and that's where all the marketing is. So it's not surprising that people have lost track of the idea you shouldn't eat it. And of course it's the food that carries the health claims. In fact, one of my rules is to not eat food that has health claims. The stuff in the produce section, which is the healthiest food of all, is utterly silent about its health benefits. I'm trying to give voice to the fruits and vegetables, so they're not drowned out by the processed food.

Slashfood: There was an article in the New York Times about how more people are relying on food stamps and people are on budgets. Processed food is cheaper. How do you get around that?
MP: That is a big challenge. The fact is, in this country, today, to eat well you need more money and that is because the system is rigged in favor of processed foods. The government subsidizes corn and soy beans, which in effect subsidizes fast food because the corn gets turned into high-fructose corn syrup and cattle and chicken feed, and the soy gets turned into the hydrogenated oil in which all fast food is fried. To make this system more equitable and to make healthy food accessible to everyone, we need to change the farm policies at a federal level and create incentives to make farmers grow real food, simple vegetables, whole grains and fruits and less attractive to grow the building blocks of fast food.

Slashfood: That's going to take years. What about now?
MP: If you're willing to cook, you can afford it. There are ways to do it. One of the great blessings in the supermarket, for example, is dried beans. You can buy organic dried beans for like two bucks a pound and that is a lot of food. That is a really cheap source of protein and fiber -- but you have to put a little time in. You've got to be strategic about cooking, perhaps making a few meals and freezing them on a Sunday afternoon or getting three meals out of a chicken. Not buying chicken breasts, but buying a whole chicken. You make roast chicken one night, you use the leftovers for say tacos or chili and then the next night you make a soup. We've kind of lost the arts of the kitchen. Most great cooking comes out of the need of poor people to stretch ingredients. I know people are challenged on the time front so without question fast food is very seductive and it's remarkable how cheap a fast food hamburger is. You can get one for a dollar, but once you know what's in one...

Slashfood: What's your take on changing the diet of children who have autism?
MP: The autism debate is a very sticky complex debate that I haven't followed closely enough to have anything of value to say. What we do know is that most of the chronic diseases that most of us suffer from in this country are the result of diet and that by changing your diet you can roll back the effects of everything from heart disease to many types of cancers to diabetes. The phrase "health care crisis" is a euphemism for the catastrophe of the American diet. Three-fourths of our health care goes to treat preventable chronic diseases. There is a powerful link between diet and disease.

Slashfood: What is your favorite tip in the book?
MP: It kind of changes over time. I looked at 3,000 suggestions to come up with these 64 so all of them are my favorites. I really like "don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." That kind of gets at the essence. We need screens to help us distinguish between real food and what I call "edible food-like substances," novelties created by food scientists, manufactured by corporations that I don't think we should dignify with the label of "food". I think we have to refine our definition of food. No-fat cream cheese is not food--it has no cream, it has no cheese. It is a synthetic food. Margarine is a synthetic food. We have not improved on what nature has given us and that we can go back to eating the plants, animals and fungi that we've been eating for thousands of years, minimally processed, you will be healthy and there's very little else you have to worry about.

Slashfood: You're sort of the Pied Piper of fresh food.
MP: What I'm saying is really common sense. If people need to hear it from me, so be it. People respond to this message because it's something they heard from their grandmothers. I'm really just curating that wisdom. This is nothing new here.

Slashfood: So are you saying you're a scam artist?
MP: [Laughs.] I wouldn't go that far. I've done two things. I have found a way to tell the story, and I've also done the research.

Slashfood: I'm teasing. I think it's really important what you say.
MP: I appreciate it. Spread the word.

Here are six rules from Michael Pollan's upcoming book, "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual":

#11 Avoid foods you see advertised on television.
Food marketers are ingenious at turning criticisms of their products -- and rules like these -- into new ways to sell slightly different versions of the same processed foods: They simply reformulate (to be low-fat, have no HFCS or transfats, or to contain fewer ingredients) and then boast about their implied healthfulness, whether the boast is meaningful or not. The best way to escape these marketing ploys is to tune out the marketing itself, by refusing to buy heavily promoted foods. Only the biggest food manufacturers can afford to advertise their products on television: More than two thirds of food advertising is spent promoting processed foods (and alcohol), so if you avoid products with big ad budgets, you'll automatically be avoiding edible foodlike substances. As for the 5 percent of food ads that promote whole foods (the prune or walnut growers or the beef ranchers), common sense will, one hopes, keep you from tarring them with the same brush -- these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.

#36 Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.
This should go without saying. Such cereals are highly processed and full of refined carbohydrates as well as chemical additives.

#39 Eat all the junk food you want -- as long as you cook it yourself.
There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we're eating them every day. The french fry did not become America's most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting, and frying the potatoes -- and cleaning up the mess. If you made all the french fries you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they're so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies, and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you're willing to prepare them -- chances are good it won't be every day.

#47 Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
For many of us, eating has surprisingly little to do with hunger. We eat out of boredom, for entertainment, to comfort or reward ourselves. Try to be aware of why you're eating, and ask yourself if you're really hungry-before you eat and then again along the way. (One old wive's test: If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you're not hungry.) Food is a costly antidepressant.

#58 Do all your eating at a table.
No, a desk is not a table. If we eat while we're working, or while watching TV or driving, we eat mindlessly-and as a result eat a lot more than we would if we were eating at a table, paying attention to what we're doing. This phenomenon can be tested (and put to good use): Place a child in front of a television set and place a bowl of fresh vegetables in front of him or her. The child will eat everything in the bowl, often even vegetables that he or she doesn't ordinarily touch, without noticing what's going on. Which suggests an exception to the rule: When eating somewhere other than at a table, stick to fruits and vegetables.

Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from Food Rules Copyright © Michael Pollan, 2009