
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007) - mishkovski
http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/
======
problems
Some of the conclusions seem a little quacky here to me - like "avoid
ingredients you can't pronounce" and a lot of "avoid processed anything".

While I'm sure there's some arguable benefits to these things, I think it's
paranoid or stupid to dismiss something just for being "processed". What the
heck does that mean anyway? All our food is processed in one form or another
and nothing about something being more processed necessitates any loss.

Maybe I just have no sense for quality, but I've tried paying double for
"organic" products and similar - only to be repeatedly disappointed with
products that taste worse or equal and spoil quicker - I'll never buy them
again, it just doesn't make sense to pay more for it.

~~~
coldtea
> _While I 'm sure there's some arguable benefits to these things, I think
> it's paranoid or stupid to dismiss something just for being "processed".
> What the heck does that mean anyway?_

It mostly means, "a whole industry of greedy scum that added all kinds of
useless and often harmful crap to the food it sells to make it last longer --
and increase their margins--, be more addictive --and increase their
margins--, be prettier looking --and increase it's margins--, be more sugary
and/or salty --and increase their margins. People that will outright lie about
what they sell you all the time [1]. People that would add melamine to infant
milk if it made a profit and they could get away with it [2]. People that
would sponsor fake science [3].

Unfortunately a lot of people are so naive as to think that corporations are
basically ethical and would never do those things, or that if something
involves technology (e.g. food chemistry) it is necessarily good, even if said
technology is used against them to pad profits.

[1] [https://priceonomics.com/the-truffle-oil-
shuffle/](https://priceonomics.com/the-truffle-oil-shuffle/) ("Despite the
name, most truffle oil does not contain even trace amounts of truffle; it is
olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane").

[2] [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/why-is-
melami...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/why-is-melamine-in-
baby-formula-you-2008-09-24/)

[3] [https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/the-food-industry-
is...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/the-food-industry-is-
gaslighting-us-on-the-harms-of-sugar/)

~~~
rubber_duck
>Unfortunately a lot of people are so naive as to think that corporations are
basically ethical and would never do those things, or that if something
involves technology (e.g. food chemistry) it is necessarily good, even if said
technology is used against them to pad profits.

I've never actually seen people like this, in fact I've only seen people who
are the exact opposite - and you seem to give off such vibe - where something
is "evil by default" because it's not "natural/organic/whatever buzzword
here".

You can get crap from your "organic local natural farmer", just from the top
of my head a few years back here in EU people were dying from ecoli caused
kidney failure because the organic farm manure contained the bacteria.

Corporations will do unethical things for money but individuals will not ? Who
do you think spends more on quality control - people who shipping millions of
units of something and have billions invested in capital to produce said thing
or some random farm ? Who do you think gets more regulatory oversight ?

And about the biased sponsored science - so we just discard science and go for
something because of how it feels ?

I mean I'm all for eating quality and fresh stuff if you can get it but the
arguments like this are just nonsense paranoia.

~~~
coldtea
> _in fact I 've only seen people who are the exact opposite - and you seem to
> give off such vibe - where something is "evil by default" because it's not
> "natural/organic/whatever buzzword here"._

I don't speak for organic, Whole Foods etc BS. That's another racket. You can
buy perfectly fine non-organic vegetables, meat, cheese in Walmart if you go
and look for it.

But american popular mass produced food is of the worst standards compared to
what people eat in Western Europe (and I presume Japan). And the food industry
there is crappier than average. That said, it's pretty bad in Europe too: a
packet of chips or some mass market ice-cream is the same shit everywhere.

> _I mean I 'm all for eating quality and fresh stuff if you can get it but
> the arguments like this are just nonsense paranoia._

What part of what I wrote looks like "paranoia" to you? That big manufactures
like Nestle, etc. are greedy and would sell any kind of crap?

> _Corporations will do unethical things for money but individuals will not ?_

Individuals will too. But people don't buy much food from individuals, they
buy it (most of it) from corporations. Plus individuals don't do mass
production and the kind of food people buy from them (from some farmer's
market for example) is not that amenable to adding all kinds of food chemistry
crap.

So the distinction I made between individuals and corporations is not that
individuals can't also be greedy, but that individuals don't manufacture mass
produced food -- corporations do.

A piece of meat is a piece of meat (at worse it will be fed crap, given
hormones). Vegetables the same. A bread bought on the supermarket on the other
hand, can have all kinds of BS in, excessive sodium, tons of sugar, BS
preservatives, etc. And there's all kinds of "microwave dishes" etc with the
lowest quality of materials and tons of added flavorings, preservatives,
things to give them specific texture, and other crap that doesn't occur or
belong to a "Salisbury steak" for example.

> _You can get crap from your "organic local natural farmer", just from the
> top of my head a few years back here in EU people were dying from ecoli
> caused kidney failure because the organic farm manure contained the
> bacteria._

Those things are orthogonal. You can also die from ecoli in food sold by large
corporations, e.g:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/business/14nestle.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/business/14nestle.html)

~~~
rubber_duck
>What part of what I wrote looks like "paranoia" to you? That big manufactures
like Nestle, etc. are greedy and would sell any kind of crap?

Citing isolated instances in an industry that provides services to billions
and saying you should be scared because of that is paranoia - on such a large
scale you are guaranteed to have bad outcomes. Meanwhile most people eat
processed food and are still walking around.

>excessive sodium, tons of sugar, BS preservatives

Preservatives have legally regulated ranges and there's nothing wrong with
high sugar/salt if you're healthy and are within your calorie limit.

>Those things are orthogonal

Of course they are - that's kind of my point.

~~~
coldtea
> _Citing isolated instances in an industry that provides services to billions
> and saying you should be scared because of that is paranoia - on such a
> large scale you are guaranteed to have bad outcomes. Meanwhile most people
> eat processed food and are still walking around._

That would be relevant if I had said that they wouldn't be walking around
(that they'd die immediately, etc.).

But what I said is that they are sold unhealthy crap to eat, not just openly
but also misleadingly and covertly, because it makes production cheaper (not
necessarily price, the margins are more often than not pocketed) and the
product more addictive to consumers (more sugars, artificial coloring to
entice the eye, etc).

Whether the industry "provides services to billions" is also irrelevant, as it
is possible to sell crap to billions, or at least, millions. Billions consume
corn syrup in all kinds of food stuff because it's cheaper than sugar and has
all the subsidies, for example. It's still crap.

> _there 's nothing wrong with high sugar/salt if you're healthy and are
> within your calorie limit._

There's nothing wrong with anything if you don't eat it too. And yet a whole
country, or half of it, is less than healthy, to the point of talking about an
"obesity epidemic".

~~~
rubber_duck
I just think the tone of your overall argument is too alarmist. I eat
processed foods from time to time - cookies, potato chips, hot dogs, ice
cream, McDonald's etc. They aren't in my regular diet but if the situation is
right I'll eat it, I don't think they are unhealthy because my body can
probably cope with whatever is unhealthy in them, just like I drink alcohol
from time to time but I don't do it on a daily basis.

I don't think anyone is advertising cookies, potato chips or ice cream as
healthy diet choices. McDonald's has some actually balanced things on their
menus (from macro nutrient perspective) like their breakfast egg burger was
~25g of protein/carb/fat - but if you order 3 + 1/2 liter of cola and fries
along with that then yeah it's not going to be good for you.

------
ericdykstra
This is a great article, and should be widely read beyond that piece of
succinct eating advice. For example, this is a great paragraph:

> In many cases, long familiarity between foods and their eaters leads to
> elaborate systems of communications up and down the food chain, so that a
> creature’s senses come to recognize foods as suitable by taste and smell and
> color, and our bodies learn what to do with these foods after they pass the
> test of the senses, producing in anticipation the chemicals necessary to
> break them down. Health depends on knowing how to read these biological
> signals: this smells spoiled; this looks ripe; that’s one good-looking cow.
> This is easier to do when a creature has long experience of a food, and much
> harder when a food has been designed expressly to deceive its senses — with
> artificial flavors, say, or synthetic sweeteners.

In fact, I recently read a book, _The Dorito Effect_ which goes into this in
much, much more detail, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the
subject. I bought it thinking it would be a light read, based on the title and
cover, but it was more engaging, better researched, and more informative than
I expected.

------
ENTP
When I eat carbs, I put on weight. When I don't, I lose weight. However, other
people I know are the opposite. Quite honestly, I think you can't generalise
'diets' or eating advice as, frankly, it would appear that different people's
bodies work in slightly different ways. This could explain the vast array of
different advice that, often times, seems contradictory.

~~~
xaviers
I can generalise diets pretty easy. Eat less calories than you burn and loose
weight. Eat whatever you want if you can abide by this rule you will loose the
weight. But to be healthy. Well you have to eat healthy to be healthy. And
that means getting all the fat, carbs and protein your body needs. And what
your body needs I agree you can't generalise.

~~~
sametmax
Not exactly true. For the same amount of calories, the quality of food may or
may not impact your weight. You can eat 4000 calories/day in banana and loose
weight, but eat 2500 in cheese burger and gain.

I tested that on myself. The body does not blindnessly store excess in
absorbed energy. It stores fat for many other reasons. One of them is to
regulate the blood PH: if you saturate your organism with too much toxic food,
you won't process it fast enough. To avoid crossing the unfamous 7.40 PH
threshold, one strategy is to use fat to wrap toxic molecules and put them
aside on your belly so you can deal with it later. Unfortunately with our
current life style, this "later" never comes.

~~~
philfrasty
„You can eat 4000 calories/day in banana and loose weight, but eat 2500 in
cheese burger and gain.“

This my friend, is not true. Not true in like...completely false.

(source: Bodybuilding for a long long time...dieting 6 months every
year...bulking up the other 6 months of the year...been counting every calorie
for years)

~~~
sametmax
Again I tested it on myself. I tried so many diets it's not funny:

\- full prot diet;

\- mono-diet;

\- fasting;

\- raw food diet;

\- veggie;

\- vegan;

\- classic 'balanced diet';

\- body-building diet where you weight your chicken;

\- and of course the good old "student-fast-food" diet.

I usually take blood samples before and after and graph my weight and IMC.

~~~
coldtea
> _Again I tested it on myself._

It doesn't matter, it's still not true. And there are tons of ways the
measuring can go wrong or be misleading.

~~~
sametmax
In the bottom comment I provided links to resources dealing with food
toxicity. Part of them deal with toxicity and weight.

Would you provide the resources to counter examples ? It's only fair to have
literature to compare the 2 point of views.

~~~
coldtea
> _In the bottom comment I provided links to resources dealing with food
> toxicity._

You just provided general resources about food and nutrition (based on the
links I'm familiar with -- others could be pseudo-science). Give some specific
excerpts about "toxins" and we can discuss them.

All food has side effects (e.g. too much sugar and diabetes, micro-allergies,
cured meat and cancer, etc). This is not the same as some unspecified BS
"toxins".

It also has nothing to do with "I eat less calories and I get fatter compared
to eating more" which was the original claim we disputed -- which is
absolutely incorrect.

[http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-detox-
scam/](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-detox-scam/)

[http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/colon...](http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/colon-
detoxification-myth-vs-science/)

[https://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/the-
de...](https://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/the-detox-
delusion/)

[http://firstwefeast.com/eat/2014/12/sorry-but-theres-no-
such...](http://firstwefeast.com/eat/2014/12/sorry-but-theres-no-such-thing-
as-a-detox)

[http://www.livescience.com/34845-detox-cleansing-facts-
falla...](http://www.livescience.com/34845-detox-cleansing-facts-
fallacies.html)

[https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-detox-scam-how-to-
spot-...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-detox-scam-how-to-spot-it-and-
how-to-avoid-it/)

[http://skepdic.com/detox.html](http://skepdic.com/detox.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detoxification_(alternative_me...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detoxification_\(alternative_medicine\))

~~~
sametmax
> You just provided general resources about food and nutrition

Well of course, why would I not ? They include the knowledge I'm using right
now.

However I can't help but notice you provide blog posts with opinions, not
studies or books.

Again I agree that using the word "toxin" was not a good choice. I'm not a
native English speaker, I don't know any proper term for "things the body
can't process, and that harms it".

> I eat less calories and I get fatter compared to eating more

Yes it has. A calorie is always in a context. It's extracted it and from this
context. During this process, molecules that can harm the body can enter it,
or be produced in it. Since using fat to wrap molecules is one of the ways the
body cope with it, it has an impact on it.

I'm not saying eating only banana is healthy, but it has few chances of
triggering the late mechanism.

~~~
coldtea
> _Yes it has. A calorie is always in a context._

No, the context only applies to health. You will always lose weight if you eat
less calories, period.

> _During this process, molecules that can harm the body can enter it, or be
> produced in it. Since using fat to wrap molecules is one of the ways the
> body cope with it, it has an impact on it._

That's not what happens. There is no such procedure that uses fat to "cope
with it". Some substances just get accumulated in fat, with no bearing as to
wether you can lose that weight by eating less calories. That's a common
pseudo-scientific misconception on the "detox" circles.

~~~
sametmax
Example of a context:

\- eat a little protein and lots of fructose from an apple from your garden;

\- eat the same amount of calories as proteins + fat in industrial meat.

The second amount will create vastly more waste, such as urea, to be processed
by the body. It will also require more energy to processed because the
fructose is almost usable as-is. Because the second source of calories brings
less minerals, it will also bring your PH down, forcing the body to deal with
it. Because it's industrial meat, it will contains synthetic products such as
antibiotic than will make your livers works a lot more and impact your
digestive system flora.

But will not trigger the same insulin response.

Same amount of calories, very different context, and impact on the body.

Again, I notice a trend in those responses: you are just saying I'm wrong
harshly but don't make demonstrations. If you know I'm wrong, please use
arguments.

~~~
antisthenes
You're wrong because you provided a list of diets, but didn't provide how many
calories you were eating on each one.

You're being deliberately obtuse and omitting half of the facts to suit your
narrative.

------
theparanoid
Gary Taubes "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" [1] is worth reading.
Previously he wrote about bad science.

[1] [https://nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-
bee...](https://nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-
fat-lie.html)

~~~
Illotus
Not much benefit in reading old stuff like that. Some of it has been
validated, some not. Insulin as the great cause for fat gain hasn't really
panned out. On the other hand now we've had some large studies that give an
inkling that eating a lot of fat can be healthy for the heart and on the other
hand replacing saturated fats with carbs(instead of unsaturated fats) is
basically status quo.

------
wyager
Nutrition, as a field, is mostly quackery and bullshit. There's a reason the
advice changes drastically every few years, and at any time there are 10
competing fad diets, each apparently supported by some number of reputable
scientific authorities.

We do not have the predictive power at this time to make authoritative
recommendations about what each and every person should eat, except for fairly
straightforward things like "eat vitamin C or you will get scurvy".

Check again 50 years or so. Maybe by then you can walk into a medical clinic,
get a DNA and gut ecosystem analysis, and walk out with a useful dietary
recommendation.

~~~
gibbitz
I'm 42 and this is what the USDA has been saying all along with their food
pyramids and four food groups and what have you. I think as a whole,
nutritionists have always been on the same page, but those selling diets keep
changing their opinions. Sure, there has been flip-flopping recently on fats
and sugars, but the edict "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" doesn't
concern itself with those. I can't recall anyone ever promoting a diet with
less vegetables (even the Atkins fad diet known for it's meat and dairy
included vegetables) and make sure to overeat at every meal and I highly doubt
either of those will ever be considered a good idea (provided the vegetables
aren't tainted by radiation or chemicals or the diet's authors aren't overly
politicizing GMO or some other arbitrary thing about production). Fad diets
are all about selling supplements and books and are indeed snake oil. The
problem is separating the wheat from the chaff and that's what this article is
really about.

~~~
wyager
> I'm 42 and this is what the USDA has been saying all along with their food
> pyramids and four food groups and what have you.

You are not remembering correctly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guides)

> I think as a whole, nutritionists have always been on the same page,

No, they certainly haven't. "Best practices" change all the time. This
happened quite recently;
[http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/06/1...](http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/06/15/2015-dietary-
guidelines.aspx)

> but the edict "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" doesn't concern itself
> with those

It also contradicts the recently popularized "keto" diet, which has roughly as
much evidence behind it as any other popular dietary recommendation (i.e. not
much).

Really the only things we can say authoritatively is "if you miss out on
certain nutrients, you get sick". Beyond that, we're not really very sure.

> The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff

Your mistake is in thinking that there's a definitive difference. Almost ever
piece of nutritional research available today has an extremely low predictive
power. Where you draw the wheat/chaff line is more or less arbitrary. Even
what should, ideally, be the most staunchly scientific food-related
organizations, the FDA and FNS, change the recommendations all the time
because they're not actually using hard science.

~~~
mistermann
> It also contradicts the recently popularized "keto" diet, which has roughly
> as much evidence behind it as any other popular dietary recommendation (i.e.
> not much).

Keto recommends avoiding plants? I suppose you're right about fruit, but those
are disallowed because of the sugar content, not because they're plant based.

EDIT: I suppose while I'm at it I should take exception with the notion "if
there is no evidence, then therefore it is wrong" line of thought. Which you
may note you didn't say _explicitly_ , so then I would ask well what did you
really mean. :)

------
unknown_apostle
For those interested: Nassim Taleb extends this kind of epistemological
conservatism to other complex domains, such as economics, finance, religion
and psychology.

"You would not have read this far into this article if your food culture were
intact and healthy; you would simply eat the way your parents and grandparents
and great-grandparents taught you to eat. The question is, Are we better off
with these new authorities than we were with the traditional authorities they
supplanted? The answer by now should be clear."

~~~
rhelsing
Can you post a link to some of his work where he discusses those topics?

------
sebleon
"When William Prout isolated the big three macronutrients, scientists figured
they now understood food and what the body needs from it; when the vitamins
were isolated a few decades later, scientists thought, O.K., now we really
understand food and what the body needs to be healthy; today it’s the
polyphenols and carotenoids that seem all-important. But who knows what the
hell else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?"

Ha, I'd love to hear what the soylent folks would say about this passage.

~~~
dualogy
> today it’s the polyphenols and carotenoids that seem all-important

What a joke, the only thing that's known _for sure_ about "polyphenols" (and
practically all non-vitamin "antioxidants", that was the previous hype) is
that a healthy human body rapidly excretes them, as well it should.

The rest is hype, speculation, and the everlasting quest for the next
"superfood"..

Carotenoids, okay, anything that's in egg yolks gets my stamp of approval. Of
course the much-loved beta-carotin is drastically useless and pales in
comparison to any source of (nonsynthetic) preformed Vitamin A from non-
carnivore sources.. (and who the heck eats carnivores!)

~~~
to3m
Carnivore meat you can eat: cat, crocodile, alligator. I'm sure there are
others. Not very common in the west - if nothing else, herbivores and
omnivores are easier to factory farm - but people do eat them.

What about fish? Tuna, salmon, shark - they all eat meat.

~~~
igravious
Come on. Who eats cats? Dogs yes, but cats?

Crocodile and alligator I can imagine that that's a thing.

~~~
monort
Cat meat is popular in Asia, especially in Vietnam.

------
umberway
Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by _empiricism_ : trying to find
facts without having theories to support them. Journalists then make hay with
the results, hinting at conclusions and advice for the public, using the
authority of Science, but really bringing it into disrepute. An awful lot of
research money has been wasted in this way and of course much of the work is
not reproducible.

~~~
charlieflowers
>> Nutrition, medicine, psychology are beset by empiricism: trying to find
facts without having theories to support them.

Really? Seems to me there are a ton of theories but precious few facts.

Atkins, low carb, high carb, gluten free, etc. Theories everywhere. But
science simply cannot tell us what foods to eat and what to avoid. It's very
frustrating to me how limited our knowledge of the human body is.

~~~
umberway
The 'facts' that I referred to are the results of correlation studies as
published in science journals. The diets you mention are mainstream fads.

You're right, though, it _is_ frustrating! My personal opinion is that it is
the way we use food for pleasure and comfort that it is to blame. We are
literally getting high on what we eat, which is deleterious for health if
performed without break for long periods. But there's no obvious way for a
scientist to address this idea at present; it would be considered too
subjective and thus ignored by the majority.

~~~
talktime
You can get high on carbs or alcohol sure enough. Try getting high on protein
or fat though.

Telling carboholics they need to eat less food is like telling alcoholics they
need to drink less liquid. It doesn't work - you've got to be more specific.

~~~
umberway
It's complicated. If I gave an obese person a bag of sugar or a kilo of lard
she probably wouldn't enjoy these things. On the other hand some folk can eat
luxury foods regularly without ill effect. It depends on personality and
intent as much as upon specific foodstuffs and substances.

And are you sure about protein? Personally I experience a strong desire for
meat if I haven't had any for a few days. The fulfillment of that desire
creates a visceral pleasure. Furthermore I can't imagine giving up apparently
innocuous items like tomatoes, either. For a few months perhaps but after a
few years I'm sure I would pine at the memory of fresh juicy tomatoes.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
If you go keto/atkins/etc for a while you get sick of meat. At least I have.
It becomes tedious to eat and my portion sizes have dropped. I end up eating
more vegetables than I ever did before, and take more pleasure from them.

~~~
tallanvor
There's certainly some combination of psychology and physiology at play here.
There are many nutrients we need that we can't get without a suitably diverse
diet, so we're hardwired to seek out variety. Even people who are starving or
constantly on the edge will get tired of having a diet that doesn't include
much variety.

My father loves to talk about how he can eat the same thing every day, but
whenever I visit, he's very quick to suggest going out to eat. He obviously
gets tired of eating the same thing over and over, but he doesn't want to
deviate too much from his routine since it helps keep him from regaining
weight.

I know I'm starting to crave a steak - it's been a few weeks, and normally I
would have steak and potatoes on Sundays as a treat after an extra-long
workout.

------
unknown_apostle
Tangentially related, to the fans of Fidel Castro: there's an interesting line
of thinking that Cubans became healthy not because of Cuba's phenomenal health
care system, but because they had to simplify their diet considerably in the
wake of the Soviet Union's implosion. They had to eat homegrown veggies
because they had no other choice.

------
mishkovski
I like the simplicity of the approach presented in this essay.

> _And at the end of it all, the answer to the question "Can we say what diet
> is best for health?" and by health, we mean longevity, vitality, weight
> control. All the good stuff that we all want. The answer is absolutely no,
> if what we mean is a very specific, prescriptive — my diet can beat your
> diet. So, you know, can we say whether the best Mediterranean diet is better
> than the best vegan diet or that’s better than the best paleo diet for human
> health? The answer is no. If what we mean, though, by "Can we say what diet
> is best for health?" is a basic theme of optimal living. Then the answer is
> a categorical yes. It’s incredibly clear from incredibly voluminous,
> incredibly consistent literature all around the world, diverse populations,
> diverse methods, observational epidemiology where you just watch and see
> what happens. Intervention trials where you assign people to diets.
> Randomized control trials and real-world experience with large populations
> like The Blue Zones. And frankly Michael Pollan pretty much nailed this one.
> Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. That really captures the essence of
> all of the world’s diets that are associated with good health outcomes._

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW8C1W1Iefk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW8C1W1Iefk)

------
FajitaNachos
The first time I saw this quote was at our local Mod Market which has become
our goto for a quick, healthyish meal. I wish there were more chains that
shared a similar philosophy.

~~~
atomical
Looks like a lot of processed meat and cheese to me.

------
garyrichardson
I read this book in 2007 when it came out and loosely followed its advice. It
changed my life. I dropped 30 pounds, 2 shirt sizes and several inches off of
my waist.

His "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." mantra is about the easiest diet
to follow in the real world.

------
totally
I remember reading this in the Sunday Magazine when it was first published. It
has really stood up to the test of time.

------
edem
To skip the boring wall of text scroll to the end and read the 9 points of
advice (if you are interested).

------
reflexive
Pollan's famous "maxim" manages to be condescending, unhelpful and inaccurate
- all at the same time.

Eat food: duh

Not too much: again, thanks?

Mostly plants: Oh you mean like, sugars and starches - the most toxic
constituents of the modern diet.

Pollan is the prototypical Bay-Area insufferable foodie. His documentary was a
cringe-fest of pseudo-spiritual fawning.

Rene Girard talks about how food has become a new status symbol as people
compete for bragging rights about how good they eat; Pollan is their patron
saint.

~~~
tinbucket
_Oh you mean like, sugars and starches - the most toxic constituents of the
modern diet._

You jump pretty readily to a conclusion that isn't in what's said. "Plants"
covers a diverse group of foods, some of which are the most nutrient rich
available to us.

You can eat nothing but potatoes, which are filled with starch, but a diet
filled with plants is much more likely to involve a rich variety of very
healthy foods. Some of these foods would be things like spinach, kale,
carrots, beetroot, beans, sweet potatoes, blueberries, apples, bananas,
strawberries, buckwheat, avocados, courgettes, onions and peppers.

There's definitely starch and sugars in these, but you'd be hard pressed to
eat them to anything like a toxic degree. To get them to a toxic degree, you'd
need to eat processed food in quantity, which isn't what the maxim, which is
undoubtably glib, is suggesting you do.

I agree with your comment about food being used as yet another status symbol,
and I generally find that a particularly unpleasant and tiresome way to treat
something as essential as eating. I'd disagree that Pollan is the patron saint
of foodies, though. He's perhaps the patron saint of plant-eating, slightly
ascetic or vegan foodies. He's certainly not the patron saint of the paleo or
keto crowd, both of which are very vocal and often produce very obnoxious
members of the "food as status symbol" group.

Out of interest, what would you recommend as a good, healthful diet? As you
can probably guess from my reply, I think Pollan's maxim, which is certainly
glib, offers a good working basis for a healthy diet.

~~~
dualogy
> "Plants" covers a diverse group of foods, some of which are the most
> nutrient rich available to us.

That's some meme. Which ones exactly? The most nutrient- _dense_ foods (per
gram / per kcal) available to us are livers, other organs, eggs and ruminant
meat --- _even before accounting for the latters ' vastly superior
digestability and bio-availability_, and even _before accounting for the
formers ' countless antinutrients_. Fresh not processed/salted/cured/etc.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpxqGa1PQc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpxqGa1PQc8)

The widespread micro-nutrient-power fantasies about vegetation come mostly
from back when they discovered ascorbic acid (aka "vitamin C") and how meat
doesn't have it but plants do. Quite the feast for marketers! By the time they
found out we don't need ascorbic _acid_ per-se, just generally "a sufficient
source of ascorbate" (which fresh meat _is_ but preserved isn't --- hence the
frequent scurvy back in the day with the 'limeys'/sailors/arctic explorers who
insisted on their biscuits and canned meats rather than the game/fish around
them), nobody cared for such pesky details..

~~~
tinbucket
At no point did I state that any of the foods you mentioned were nutrient poor
-- I just said that some plants are among the most nutrient dense foods
available. This can be true without dismissing other foods as nutrient poor.
That even fits in with Pollan's maxim, which simply states _most_ of the food
you eat should be plants.

Since you asked, here are some nutrient rich plants from memory: kale,
spinach, blueberries, garlic, lead, raspberries, asparagus, lentils.

All of these make great additions to any diet, aren't loaded with toxic levels
of sugar and starch. They go great with liver, eggs, fish, or meat. I don't
really understand where your hostility comes from, or why you simultaneously
try to downplay the nutrients available in plants as some kind of conspiracy
against other forms of food.

~~~
reflexive
> I just said that some plants are _among_ the most nutrient dense foods
> available.

To be honest, that's not what you said. You clearly stated that _the most_
nutrient rich foods are plants, which is false.

> "Plants" covers a diverse group of foods, some of which are the most
> nutrient rich available to us.

