Michael Pollanreleased the first edition ofFood formula : An Eater ’s Manualin 2009 and it became a best seller , initiating a national dialogue about America ’s notoriously poor intellectual nourishment choices . The 2011 edition boast a raw founding and a fistful of additional rules , some of which were provide by readers , and beautiful example by famous artistMaira Kalman .

InFood Rules , Pollan indicate that or else of listening to the latest , always - change nutritionary advice from government agency and vane MD ’s , we might be better off listening to the food sapience exit down to us through the generations . After all , that conversational wiseness kept the human backwash alive for thousands of year .

But why do we call for rules to eat by ? Because we ’ve clear lose our sense of what plant real food . Obesity and heart disease are conditions we ’ve mostly eaten ourselves into and with some rule of thumb and self - discipline , we might be able-bodied to reverse these epidemics . Pollan hopes that some of these rules will become “ steamy ” in readers ’ minds , so when you ’re confront with that dazzling raiment of frozen entrance in the supermarket , you remember :

… and prefer for the green goods gangway or else . As consumer , we ’re barraged with food marketing messages all day : hoarding , tuner , idiot box , magazines , newspapers , on-line ads , entanglement streams , wandering gimmick . Intended to mold our food choices , they certainly succeed . Americans have not only veered forth fromeating fresh and local , but we eat our meals in our cars , at our desk ,   await for train ,   on the couch , in front of a screen , when we ’re world-weary , and when we ’re anxious , and we do it as tight as we can .

We have amount to reckon food simply as a utilitarian machine , like arrange gasolene in the automobile , or else of gathering around a table , share the day ’s events with our family or friends and savor our meal , prepared in our own kitchen . fastness eating is pointed to as a major culprit in the obesity epidemic , as we reach for high sugar and starch “ solid food product ” to find warm satiety and deplete so tight that the “ full ” message from our stomachs does n’t achieve our brains before we ’ve stuffed ourselves like a Christmas goose .

InFood Rules , Pollan suggeststhat we pass more fourth dimension in the kitchen train meal and that westart a garden . He say that when we fix our meal personally or spring up our fruits , grains , and vegetables from source to harvest , we modernise a deeper connection with our food and an hold of how much work is required to grow it and train it before it land on our plate . The solvent is that we in reality eat less of it . For instance , he says , fried chicken used to be a meal served only for peculiar occasions , because it regard so much effort : draw the chicken ; season the Gallus gallus ; drag the Gallus gallus in flour ; electrocute it ; and preparing the biscuit , boom , and greens . It was a meal meant to be shared with family , fuss over , and thoroughly enjoyed . Now fried chicken comes in a box from any bit of loyal food franchises . The qualities that made it special have been completely wrung out of it . As a result , this high fat , large calorie - dense meal which used to be eat infrequently is consume anytime , daytime or dark , special juncture or no . As a result , our body carry on the calories which our sedentary lifestyle ca n’t shed .

If we grow an appreciation for what we put in our bodies , we ’ll make better food for thought choices - ones that do n’t involve drive - up windows .

This solid food - anytime - I - need - it acculturation is a sudden ( in evolutionary full term ) , paradigm transmutation in the way our body evolved to digest nutrient and store small calorie , and it places Americans on a outrageous wellness decline . Food Rulesis an attempt to re - aline that substitution class with common sense .

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