PNTV: Food Rules by Michael Pollan (#323)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, Food Rules by Michael Pollan. Food Rules Subtitle An Eater's Manual. Michael Pollan is one of the world's leading writers on nutrition. Time magazine in 2010 called him one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. His other best selling books include the Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. I'm excited to cover those as well. For now, Food Rule super small little book, 64 rules. Distilling the essence of what we should be thinking about if we want to optimize our health via optimizing our nutrition. I highly recommend it. Some of our shortest books are the most, you know, page for page packed with wisdom. This one is it. If you want a super quick eater's manual, get a copy. Bunch of big ideas. Let's look at five of them. Now. We'll start with seven words and two facts. So Michael talks about the fact that nutrition science is a very young science. He says, to put it charitably, it's a very young science to less than 200 years old. He says it's kind of like surgery in the year 1650. It's very interesting to watch, lots of promise, but you wouldn't want them actually operating on you. But the further he drilled into all this supposedly contradictory wisdom on what works, he said that he discovered two facts in seven words. Let's start with the seven words. The seven words that capture the essence of this book are these. Eat food, not too much and mostly plants. That, he says, is the essence of a solid nutrition strategy. Eat food. We're going to talk about what that means versus its alternative. And not too much. In mostly plants. Those seven words form the basis of again, a solid nutritional approach. These are also the three parts of the book. Part one, part two and part three, seven words. We want to remember those. And then we have two facts. So the two facts that he talks about, he says, look, everybody in the warring nutritious factions agree on two things. The first thing they agree on is that the Western diet is causing all these chronic diseases, right? All the obesity, the cardiovascular disease. 80% of cardiovascular disease is directly tied to diet. 33% of cancers are directly tied to a Western diet. No one's arguing about that. A Western diet in this sense is basically a ton of processed foods and processed meats, a ton of added sugar and processed carbs, right? Refined carbs and not a lot of vegetables, fruits and whole grains. That's the essence of a Western diet. Now everyone agrees that that western diet is associated with increases in all the things we don't want, all the chronic diseases. Now they argue over which particular aspect of the Western diet is the worst, but they all agree on that basic premise. And he says fact number two is that traditional populations who eat traditional diets, not the Western diet, don't have those chronic diseases. Those two facts they agree on. Now what's interesting is those traditional diets can vary from super high fat. Like the Inuit in Greenland eat almost exclusively seal blubber, right? Super high fat, but they don't have any chronic diseases. Then you have the Central American Indians who ate almost primarily, almost all carbohydrates, maize and beans, but they don't have the chronic diseases. Then you can go to the other side of the spectrum on protein. You have the Maasai in Africa. They eat a ton of protein, cattle blood and meat and milk, but they don't have chronic diseases. So there's something about the Western D that's leading to these issues. And he says basically we need to move away from that by eating food. Not too much, mostly plants. Seven words, two facts we want to have in mind. The second big idea is a great phrase. So rule number one, 64 rules in this book. Rule number one is eat food. He says that sounds like it should be simple, but it's not anymore. We have way too many edible food like substances. That's what he calls stuff that's not really food. We may think it is, but he says 17,000. When he wrote this book, 17,000 new food products were introduced every single year. Or as he would say, new edible food like substances were introduced. The stuff that's in the middle aisles of the grocery store you want to stay away from. You want to eat food, not the food like substances. How do you know whether it's food or food like substances? He says, well, he's got a bunch of clues, right? Clues include things like it never rots. Living food rots. As we talked about in clean gut. The longer the shelf life, the shorter your life, right? You want food that rots. Basically, those preservatives are acting as antibiotics. They get into you. Not healthy. You don't want to eat things that a third grader, right? That has ingredients a third grader can't pronounce. Not smart. And if it comes through your window, he says, that's not food. If you get your food through a drive through window, not food, edible food like substances. So rule number one, eat food. Keep that in mind. And then another simple rule is if your great grandparents didn't eat it, you probably shouldn't eat it. Third, big idea, low fat has led to more fat. So if you look at the late 1970s, that's when we instituted this whole low fat craze, he says, over that period of time when we said, look, we need to get rid of fat, we demonized fat and introduced all these low fat and non fat options. He says it's fascinating because since the 1970s, the average man weighs 17 pounds more than he did in the 1970s. Late 1970s, the average woman is 19 pounds heavier than she was in the late 1970s. And we've increased our calorie intake over that period of time by 500 calories. And what happened was that as all the food manufacturers jumped onto the bandwagon of the first food pyramid, actually in the 80s, right, 92, rather, we added sugar. We added a ton of sugar to all those foods to make them taste better. Once you remove the fat, it doesn't taste as good. All of a sudden, you have these sugars. We're going to talk in our next episode about Dr. David Ludwig's work in a book called Always Hungry. David Ludwig is the first person that Michael Pollan thanks in his acknowledgments in this book. Ludwig is a researcher out of Harvard who has an MD and a PhD. One of the most cited researchers studying this stuff, who talks about this connection that we need to quit demonizing fat and bring fat back into our diets. And not only did we replace the fat with carbs, but those carbs, those added refined sugars and carbs and actually make us Hungrier, hence the 500 more calories we're consuming, et cetera. We'll talk about that more in the next episode. But no, it's the low fat craze that led to the fattening of our society. Fat, paradoxically, does not make you fat. It's all the added sugars, carbs, et cetera, refined carbs. Fourth big idea, 66% to 80%. This goes to the not too much idea. Gives us a range of different traditional cultures and their wisdom. Muhammad, prophet Muhammad said, you want to eat until you're 66% full, 33% food, 33% liquid, 33% air, right? The Germans, the Chinese, 70%, 75%. 80% is what the Japanese said. They have a phrase for that, right? Eat until you're 80% full, not until you're 110% full. So check in and c How full are you? You want to eat until you've satiated the hunger, not until you just can't even roll out of the seat. Right. 66% to 80%. Eat food. Not too much. And then the final big Idea, again, there's 64 of them. His final rule is basically be willing to break the rules on occasion. Everything in moderation, including, as Oscar Wilde said, moderation. Everything in moderation, including moderation. Sometimes you just gotta let it rip. But you want to have basic daily practices, these basic rules and guidelines that we can use as our compass to navigate. We want to be, as Joe Manganiello says, strict but flexible. You want to have certain protocols you follow, but you also need to be able to vary it. At times. We talk about that as the river of flexibility. You need some structure, but not so much that you become rigid and dogmatic. And you need some flexibility, some spontaneity rather, but not so much that you become chaotic. In between those banks, right. Of rigidity and chaos is where we want to flow. Be willing to break some rules. Everything in moderation, including moderation. Don't fill yourself up to 110%. Leave some space. 66% to 80%. Remember, it's not the. You're not looking for low fat. And he says, don't eat stuff that says low fat on it or light. Just eat the whole stuff moderately rather than try to go into this. Because you're just going to be eating more sugar, etc. Edible food, like substances. Next time you're cruising around and you see something in a jar or tube or whatever, and you can't read the ingredients, it's never going to rot. Know that we're not talking about food. We're violating rule number one, right? We're not eating food. We're eating edible food, like substances. That's fantastic. And then we had our seven words and two facts. Western diets create these chronic diseases. The traditional diets do not. And he also makes a very important point that there is no one diet that's perfect for everybody. Again, you can have super high fat in certain cultures. You can have super high protein, you can have super high carb. But what you don't have is the ultra processed foods. You have whole foods, not too much of it. And there you go. You're mostly plants. For our basis here in our 21st century lives, food rules. Quick look. Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more. 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