Analysis of Food Rules by Michael Pollan - Book Report/Review Example

Your full December 17, “Food Rules” by Michael Pollan: Introduction: Michael Pollan has presented 64 marvelous principles about healthy eating in his book “Food Rules” that one should follow in order to maintain a balanced diet. Conventionally, more and more people have become weight conscious in the contemporary society as obesity has become common. Processed foods have flooded the market and every brand claims to be more beneficial and nutritious than other. On the contrary, obese people have grown in number manifolds in recent years owing to bad eating habits and excessive consumption of food rich in fats and carbohydrates. This has generated a common concern among people i.e. to search for ways to ensure healthy eating and maintaining a smart figure. Summary: The book “Food Rules” by “Martic Pollan” is very different from the conventional nutritional guides in that it teaches to control human activities more than calorie count, that is the focus of discussion in most of the nutritional guides. The book fundamentally discusses human psychology with respect to food. According to Pollan, although it is good to distinguish between right food and wrong food, yet the ultimate factor that decides the impact of food on an individual is the right or wrong habits. The book is based upon 64 simple and easy to follow rules that one should employ in everyday life from the start of the day till its end. For example, Pollan emphasizes in-take of a heavy meal in the breakfast, moderate in the lunch and lightest in the dinner. Likewise, he suggests never to eat up to the full capacity. Pollan believes that grandmas can be consulted to learn if a certain food should be consumed or not. Pollan suggests more in-take of fresh fruits and vegetables than meat. One should eat on the table and not while wandering, driving or watching tv. Rule No. 58 of Michael Pollan suggests us to “attend” food. (Pollen) says, “If we eat while were 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.” One should not eat processed food. Junk food can be consumed but only the one that is home made. In total, 64 rules offer a comprehensive yet easy to remember guide towards healthy eating. Analysis: One can eat all the junk food and as much as one wants and still be slim and smart provided that one knows where to eat that. No wonder it sounds little absurd! To read this, one would wonder what one’s place of eating has got to do with the effect of food on body, though the relation is very strong and human psychology explains that. When eating is accompanied with another activity, one pay’s less attention to the volume of food one takes. It so happens because of two basic reasons. First, one does not realize how much one ate. Secondly, one tends to relieve the depression developed through one’s involvement in the other activity by eating food. We subconsciously employ food as a means to relieve our depression. Food indeed, does the job very nicely. We become lost in exploring the taste and enjoying the wonders of food while we eat. This temporarily regulates the tension and we feel energetic. While it is true that food is a good antidepressant, it does not necessarily follow that eating is the only means of retreating depression. One should instead drink a glass of water every time one feels obsessed with work. Contrary to this, if one decides to eating nothing unless there is a table to put the food on and a chair to sit in while eating, one is likely to shed off considerable amount of weight. This can be attributed to the fact that having attended the meal properly, one feels relished and satisfied. The food has had its share in the routine. So one knows one is done with it. However, people have reservations accepting Pollan’s assertion that attending food reduces in-take. They tend to associate the amount of intake with hunger whereas it is actually associated with satisfaction. They must realize that attending food properly gives an individual the “feeling of accomplishment” that is never achieved, if the same amount of food is consumed while walking, driving, or watching tv. It is about the feel. One feels done with food, one’s hunger is satisfied. Hunger is very different from satisfaction. We feel hungry as long as we know in our subconscious that we have not “attended” meal on the dining table, no matter we just ate a plate full of French fries in the bed. Pollan comes up with one potential way in which we can satisfy our hunger despite having eaten less. This can be achieved through eating less. Pollan says that when we eat slow, we gain satisfaction and when we eat fast, we gain calories. Although I have no objection to the later part of the statement that says that eating fast incurs us more calories, yet I am a bit skeptical about approving the first part. I do not think I can ever be satisfied by eating slowly. Instead, eating slowly would frustrate me and I am likely to be bemused. Also, if I try to eat slowly intentionally, it makes my act of eating feel banal. So, I do not approve Pollan’s assertion that eating slowly makes us satisfied. In fact, I think the opposite way! Pollan has emphasized the use of fresh fruits and vegetables instead of processed or other junk foods with the claim that they are low in calories and protect an individual against chronic diseases. Pollan’s assertion is absolutely correct and his claim is justified by many researches that have been conducted in the past. “Most fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat and calories and are filling” (CDC). Plants and vegetables are rich in nutrients and low in carbohydrates and fats. So they naturally appeal to all weight conscious people. I agree that because my experience confirms that eating vegetables makes one loose weight. I personally shed a number of kilos within days as I spared eating everything except for raw carrots. I used to drink carrot juice and eat them as well so as to ensure the in-take of fiber. Because vegetables like carrots are rich in fiber, they make us feel satisfied and yet, we are not taking in any fats and carbohydrates. People used to think that red meat is very good for health and strength, and should thus be consumed in large quantities. But recently through research, (eHealth MD) suggests that saturated fats present in red meat raise cholesterol level in the blood. I do not agree to Pollan’s rule that says that we should abstain from everything that a grandmother would not recognize as food. Here, I would like to raise some objections that have been inspired by the skeptic in me. Pollan’s rule is indeed, an overt disapproval of all the research and development that has taken place in the food industry over the years. Also, Pollan did not provide considerable rationale behind the suggestion. He just said that grandmothers used to consume healthy food in their time and have stuck to that all their life. But that never challenges the integrity and nutritional value of the variety of food we have today. First, grandmas have their own choice in food. There are many eatables that one grandma would have eaten all her life and another grandma would not even realize as food. Every individual has his/her own way of approaching a certain eatable. Therefore, there is no point believing a vegetarian grandma if she did not realize red meat as food, though one can always seek an advice from a grandma upon how much to eat. The volume of food that should be consumed by an individual has been dictated by many cultures and religions as Pollan mentioned in his book, “the prophet Muhammad described a full belly as one that contained 1/3 food and 1/3 liquid – and 1/3 air, i.e., nothing” (Pollan 103). It is always advisable not to eat to the full capacity, and Pollan has rightly depicted that. We commonly tend to eat beyond our capacity, what to talk of eating less than capacity. This is wrong. Many dieticians may challenge my view that one should not fill more than 33.33% of the capacity with solid food. After all, many believe that the more we eat, the more our metabolism boosts up and the more work our internal system has to do and we end up loosing weight instead of gaining. Although I grant that food boosts metabolism, I still maintain that a calorie is a calorie. It would ultimately cost one more than pay. Conclusion: Pollan has adopted a very unique and rational approach by involving human psychology in the discussion of healthy eating. Conventional nutritional guides obsess the reader with calories counts and calorie comparison between different foods. In order to ensure healthy eating, we need to modify our own actions instead of counting calories in foods. On the one hand, I agree with the liberal view that we should eat up to our full in order to be satisfied and all set for work, on the other hand, I still insist that we should eat less than what would satisfy our hunger because satisfaction makes us lazy. That is why, we become too lazy after a heavy meal because all energy gets used up in digesting food. As we sleep, we put on weight and yet again, we are soon hungry. Therefore, it is better to have control over one’s hunger instead of expecting food to work wonders on its own. While (Pollan) is probably wrong when he states that we should consult our grandmas to know if a particular eatable can be considered as food, he is right that grandmas are indeed, equipped with a lifelong experience. So we should at least consult our grandmothers to know what they would recommend us to eat from a myriad of options. Overall, many of Pollan’s 64 healthy eating rules are justified and promise a healthy nutrition. They largely require one to alter one’s habits of heating. If one is diet or weight conscious and one wants to shed off some extra kilos, Pollan’s book can prove a very good and easy to remember guide specially that one does not have to worry about counting calories in the foods. Works cited: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “How to Use Fruits and Vegetables to Help Manage Your Weight.” 5 June 2009. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. eHealth MD. “How What You Eat Affects Your Cholesterol.” 2004. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. . Pollan, Michael. Food Rules: An Eaters Manual. Penguin Paperback, 2009. Print. Pollan, Michael. ““Food Rules”: A Completely Different Way To Fix The Health Care Crisis.” 4 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 Dec. 2010. . Read More