Green Living

What are Your Food Rules?

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I follow Michael Pollan very closely. As far as required reading for anyone interested in living green, I would put every one of his books on my list.

His latest project is to poll NYTimes readers about their rules for eating. One facet of Pollan's argument for a better way of living is that we've separated food consumption from ritual and enjoyment, and that doing so has caused us to lose sight of food as something that sustains us, rather than a mere sop to boredom.

Pollan includes several rules of his own in his most recent book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. Here are a few:

• Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.


• Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients.


• Stay out of the middle of the supermarket. Shop around the perimeter for the foods that are least processed. They're there because they need to be replaced more often and the perimeters allow for easier access for stock boys.


• Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. That means it's not really food.


• Don't buy your food where you buy your gasoline.


• Pay more, eat less.

And of course: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

All of these rules are about changing the way we engage with the food we eat and giving it a more central position in our lives. Food really is the most important thing - it gives us nutrition and pleasure and draws us closer to others. Every other culture has its set of rituals celebrating food, we need to create our own.

How do you think and feel about food? Do you treat it with respect? What are your food rules?