In Defense of Food--A GIVEAWAY!

My dear friend Kristina, is having an awesome giveaway!  I'll tell you how to enter, but, first let me tell you about the prize and why I like it so much, even though I've not read it!

Kristina is a personal chef and my personal fitness guru.  (Didn't know I had a fitness guru until I typed that sentence.)  She does a fantastic book review of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto.  Now, I haven't read the book and you know how you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover?  This book has me totally sold on the cover alone!  It says: Eat Food.  Not Too Much.  Mostly Plants.  Is that not just the best and most simple and therefore the most intelligent nutritional message you've ever heard?

See, I get overwhelmed when people start telling me that I shouldn't eat this and that I shouldn't eat that, that I shouldn't combine this thing with that thing and that I should only eat at these times and not that time.  Heavy.  Way too heavy for me.  I adore food.  I really do.  I love to eat.  I love beautiful food. I love colorful food.  I like to cook, try new recipes, spread my culinary wings.  And when I feel like eating, I eat.  The good thing about this is that we generally have healthy stuff in our house.  I rarely if ever buy convenience foods, prepared meals, junk food, artificially colored foods, or things with an enormously long shelf life.  So....if I get hungry and I go whip up a snack or grab some left-overs chances are it's moderately healthy.  And so I indulge my edible whims whenever I want.  And it seems to have worked for me, so far. 

Pollan's "rules" are so simple that they do not overwhelm me.  They are do-able.  And I practice many, if not most of them to various degrees already.  Here they are:

1. 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. (speaking of HFCS, has anyone seen these propaganda ads?  Hilarious.)

2. Avoid food products that make health claims. (I just never buy it when there is a "new" product that is so good for you we can't live without it.  I'm always skeptical of over-the-top health claims.)

3. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.  (cheaper this way, too!)

4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.  (I love our weekly trips to the Farmer's Market.)

5. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

6. You are what, what you eat, eats too.

7. If you have the space, buy a freezer.

8.  Eat like an omnivore.

9. Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.

10. Eat wild foods when you can.

11. Be the kind of person who takes supplements. (I don't know what he writes about this.  Sometimes I think the health claims of supplements are overstated, too.  But, high quality naturally derived supplements can be good.)

12. Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians or the Greeks. (or the Mongolians?)

13. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism

14. Don’t look for the “magic bullet” in the traditional diet.

15. Have a glass of wine with dinner. (Oh, OK.  If you insist.)

16. Pay more, eat less.

17. Eat meals. (This is so great.  This is not just a nutritional message, it's a social/cultural one, too.  What ever happened to family dinner?  We don't just need healthier drive-thru food or low-fat snacks.  We need meals!)

18. Do all your eating at a table. (Read my instructions on How To Make Dinner.)

19. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.

20. Try not to eat alone.

21. Consult your gut.

22. Eat slowly.

23. Cook and, if you can, plant a garden. (We are moving in a couple weeks to a house with a yard big enough for me to have a garden.  So, all you green-thumbs, please give me all your tips.)

Does this book not sound like a total winner?!  Finally some common sense in the nutrition world!

So, if you'd like to win your own copy, visit Living In Balance blog and leave a comment before February 28!  HURRY!  HURRY!  Tell Kristina The Gomboblog sent you!