Michael Pollan’s 20 rules for eating well

As contributed by New York Times readers

By Culinate staff

October 7, 2009

In March, Michael Pollan asked readers of the New York Times’ health-focused blog, Well, for their own personal, commonsense rules about how to eat well (as opposed to, say, the government-issued advice in the USDA food pyramid).

Pollan, as you may know, had issued his own seven-word food rule in his book, In Defense of Food: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Within days, Pollan’s request had elicited 2,500 responses — and apparently they're still coming in. Today, the Times published Pollan's favorites among the responses. Says Pollan:

Think of this body of food knowledge as samizdat nutrition: an informal, unsanctioned way of negotiating our eating lives that becomes indispensable at a time when official modes of talking about food have suffered a serious loss of credibility.

Hungry for more? Pollan is putting together a short book of these “personal food policies” — to be published in January. Stay tuned.