Food Rules

So I picked up this book the other day that is called Food Rules written by Michael Pollan. He also wrote Omnivore's Delimma & In Defense of Food. 

Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants

The book is composed of 64 rules that are under one of the categories above. These seven words sound easy to follow but being constantly surrounded with fake, processed, cheap food, it can get a little complicated. Nutrition science makes it hard for us to eat real food. They are telling us to follow this diet, or that diet. To eat high protein or low fat. The trends are constantly changing and we just keep getting fatter and more unhealthy! The more the food is processed the more money manufacturers make! They also can change the ingredients based on the new trends. For example, omega 3's are seen everywhere right now. So the manufacturers just throw in some of this fat and label their food item with it to get people to buy their product. They even add things to food that should not be in there. Oreos with added Omega-3's? Come on really? This gets people to continue to buy it!

Almost all obesity, type 2 diabetes, 80% of heart disease, and over 1/3 of cancers are linked to the western diet!! The western diet is not suitable for our body and it doesn't know what to do with these chemicals! You would think that we would try to target our diet to decrease these chronic diseases. But we don't because money is the driving force behind it all. The health care industry makes millions of dollars more to treat these diseases then to prevent them. Also, the more the food is processed and packaged up, the more the food industry makes. 

"We ignore the elephant in the room and focus on the good and evil nutrients of the food item" Not being apart of this Western diet can decrease your chances of getting heart disease by 80%, type 2 diabetes by 90%, and colon cancer by 70%. That is amazing. To decrease these risks Michael says you need to:

-Decrease trans fat & saturated fat intake

-Increase your good fat intake

-Increase your whole grains intake

-2 servings of fish per week

-Getting enough folic acid and vitamins

-Not smoking and limited alcohol

-BMI < 25

-30 min of exercise per day

Everyday I will be posting a few rules out of the book to help us EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY PLANTS. I'm so excited to share these with you!