Have you ever read
Michael Pollan’s Food Rules? It’s a really quick and easy read outlining the 64
best rules to follow about choosing, eating and thinking about the food you
consume. One of my favorites is Food Rule #2: “Don't eat anything your great-grandmother
would not have recognized as food.” I
will venture to guess this includes anything with an “oh” sound; Cheetos,
Doritos, Fritos, HoHos, Oreos…you mean Great-grandma wouldn’t have appreciated
orange “cheese” stained fingers or scraping the white cream from the middle of
an Oreo cookie?? Nah, probably not. My great-grandma would have much preferred
a dry gin martini with 2 olives…but I suppose that is another story entirely.
Another of my favorite
phrases attributed to Pollan cautions, "Don't eat anything that contains
ingredients a third grader cannot pronounce." Check out your pantry, how
many boxes and cans of processed convenience items do you have stocked? Now grab
a box and check out the label, read the ingredients. Sodium tripolyphosphate,
Yellow 5, Soy Lecithin, Partially hydrogenated oil, artificial flavoring. Can I
find those ingredients at Kroger in the “scientific name” aisle? I personally like a little extra Yellow 5 in
my food, but that may just be preference.
How about your medicine
cabinet? Have you ever read any of those ingredients? I never had. Pick up your
usual daily multi-vitamin and read the main ingredients: zinc oxide,
microcrystalline cellulose, gelatin, hydropropyl methylcellulose, tocopheryl
acetate, pyridorine hydrochloride…um, what? I don’t think Dr. Oz ever
recommended my daily allowance of crocarmellose sodium. Now, let’s look at a bottle of Standard Process’ daily multi-vitamin Catalyn: defatted wheat germ, nutritional yeast, bovine adrenal, magnesium citrate, dried pea juice, dried alfalfa, mushroom, oat flour, honey…words that even my elementary school-aged child could read! Catalyn contains several vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients from approximately 15 different whole food sources. This complex set of real, whole food ingredients along with vitamins and minerals help broadly support both the physiological and the biological processes of the human body.
This is a HUGE step in
the right direction for both my body and my peace of mind. And, as my main man
Pollan says, “eat foods that you can picture in their raw state or growing in
nature.” I don’t think that I will be planting my tocopgeryl acetate tree
anytime soon, thankfully.
