Book review: Michael Pollan - Food Rules

My interest in literature on good food and food in general is of a latter date, but the concerns about eating healthy was always present into my life. First and foremost, I was never the type of person keen to eat everything I saw and each decision to taste - or not - a certain food, was carefully considered from various perspectives. It sounds very poetic, but it is how it worked in my case. It involved a careful lecture of the ingredients, details about the production and the brand distributing in. 

As I grew up with my own garden, and even knew for a while to connect to the rhythm of nature - waiting impatiently to pick up the tomatoes or other fruits we had in the garden - I tried as much as possible to be also careful from where I buy my fruits and vegetables. 

Michael Pollan's book is my first 'academic' reading experience, when I not only read an article or some blogs about good food but a well written literary work. In less than two hours you will rediscover the secrets of the good food that for sure our grand and grand grand parents knew so well. It was not only a pleasure for the mind, but also for the eyes, as the book has a lot of good drawings. 

Pollan doesn't lecture about food, but states simple truths, organized in three parts: What should I eat? (Eat food), What kind of food should I eat? (Mostly plants) and How should I eat (Not too much). You need to avoid long list of ingredients - if there are more than five, you better look for another product - the not-so-natural face of your food, the food usually cooked by humans and you, as a human should dedicate more time to preparing the food by yourself. I follow as well most of the advices, including that of consuming moderate meat - in the case of my family, one meal the week.

Eating is not only for getting feed, but also to share a social and cultural experience. The food you eat say something about you and your cultural background. Our busy life and bad habits drove us away from the natural way of eating, but the good news is that more and more people are turning to the old good habits. There are so many recipes waiting to be cooked!