EAT FOOD

Week 1: Eat Food

In the first three weeks of my blog, I will incorporate, one by one, Michael Pollan's recommendations into my diet. This week I will focus on his first recommendation: Eat Food. While this first recommendation may seem to be a simple one, it is actually quite complicated. 


In today's world of buying food in boxes and eating at restaurants, most people are probably unaware of what they are actually eating. Pollan argues that there are all too many "edible foodlike substances." In order to ensure that we are truly eating food instead of these processed substances, he recommends the following:

• Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as a food.
• Avoid eating products that contain products that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number, or that include high-fructose corn syrup.
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Stay out of the middle of the supermarket
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible

This list is certainly not going to be an easy list to follow, but I welcome the challenge!

Well this challenge has certainly been more difficult than I thought it would be! I didn't realize the amount of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and caffeine was in so many of the things I consume daily. Needless to say I have been experiencing some headaches that are probably due to lack of caffeine and/or sugar intake. I certainly feel much more tired than usual today, but it's probably because I simply didn't realize how much I truly depended on sugar and caffeine to get myself going in the morning.

I think my main habit that I'm going to have to overcome is soda. While Michael Pollan does say that you can "cheat" every once in a while, I certainly do not just have a soda every once in a while. I definitely have at least one daily, and sometimes as many as three or four. For now, I'm going to give up soda altogether until I can trust myself to drink them in a more responsible manner. I'll let you all know how that goes...