Food Rules

Rachelle and I are having fun using Michael Pollan’s book, Food Rules, as a springboard for our 12:30pm Monday live conversations posted on Facebook .

The chapters are short, simple, and to the point. The concepts are readily understandable and for the most part, common sensical and non-controversial.

Chapter 1. Eat food. Of course, this begs the question: what is food? And this is a  fair question. Because we have been calling food like substances “food” for several generations now, some people may not know what real food is. The rest of the book helps people understand the real food concept.

Chapter 2 -Don’t eat anything your grandmother would not recognize as food.  

This is a particularly interesting chapter as I consider what I have learned about the evolution of food and the food industry in the United States. I think we would have to go back to my great, great-grandmother from the late 1800s though, to find people eating 100% whole and real foods. Processed foods crept into our food system about the turn of the century when people moved from the country, where they were growing and eating their own foods, to the cities where they bought food brought in.

With little to no refrigeration and no regulation of foods, products emerged to cover the taste of spoiled real foods. Heinz catchup is a case in point. According to what I learned from the History Channel, it was Henry Heinz who labored tirelessly to create a tomato paste to cover the taste of rancid meat. And it was also Henry Heinz who “lobbied for new food safety regulation so his competitors could no longer sell similar products with dangerous additives, even sending his son to meet lawmakers in Washington, D.C. His efforts were instrumental in the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act which passed on June 23, 1906, and eventually became the FDA.”

The mid-day meal, also called luncheon meaning “thick hunk” (as in thick hunk of meat) used to be the largest meal of the day.  Once people started working in factories, they were not able to go home for this meal, so they brought their smaller lunch to work or bought it from the street vendors. The evening meal transitioned to the largest meal.

How has all this change in our culture, in our food, in our government agencies, etc. impacted our weight and health?

Historical tidbits like that fascinate me. Maybe because I am a questioner and wonder how in the world we got here? How did we ever come to think that refined muffins and cereal and bagels could replace good old free-range eggs and vegetables as health food? How did we become convinced that the pristine white Crisco that comes in a silver can from an oil plant was better for us than the tallow or butter from a real cow that ate real grass plants? When I walk through a grocery store today and eighty percent of what is packed in the shelves and aisles is processed and ultra processed, I wonder how did we stray so far from real food?

Was it marketing or misinformation or maleficence? Or maybe all the above?  Of course, it is a complicated question with complicated answers so many different forces at play.

But it is no wonder that we are so unhealthy with so many chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

We may have many opinions about how we got here, but we all can agree that we are not in a great place health-wise. And hopefully we can agree that food, real food, has the unique ability to nourish, and protect, and heal and restore our health. At Oregon Weight and Wellness, we teach people what real food is and how to make small steps to improve the quality of their food. Because when it comes to our health, we believe that real food RULES!

Please join the conversation, on Facebook, on Mondays at 12:30pm.