As always, The Daily Mail has the welfare of its readers close to its heart. Today they have published a list of food rules which should guide uncertain consumers on to the path of healthy eating. Unusually for lists of rules, there is a glimmer of humour about it. ‘It’s not food if it has the same name in different languages’ is a neat warning against the potential perils of fast food chains while ‘Avoid foods that Grandma wouldn’t recognise’ tries to steer readers away from over-processed food.
It is all good common sense stuff which has been edited down from Michael Pollan’s book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual. The book is published in May and, at first glance, seems to be a spin-off from his previous book In Defence of Food. In Defence asked why, in an age when we are bombarded with information about nutrition and healthy eating, are we eating less healthily than previous generations?
Handily, Mr Pollan has condensed his solution down to just seven wise words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.