In Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (Penguin Press, January 2010 Paperback, November 2011 Illustrated Edition), Michael Pollan hopes to give you a guide to food staples that you can read in 20 minutes, pore over, and consider for hours, and then take it with you to restaurants and supermarkets to inform all your food buying decisions. Sort of like Mao’s “Little Red Book”, only for food instead of communism. Unfortunately, he later released a hardcover edition (illustrated by Maira Kalman) that costs twice as much and isn’t as portable.

Many of the rules will make you laugh and hopefully think. I love “Eat only food that will eventually rot.” I have noticed that many bread products seem to have suspiciously long shelf lives. When you have a nice freshly baked baguette that starts to mold around day 3 and a loaf of generic wheat sandwich bread that is four days old and looks perfect, be very scared.

Other rules seem sensible until another rule contradicts them. “Don’t eat anything your great-grandma doesn’t recognize as food” is pretty self-explanatory, but then you get “Eat like the Japanese.” I promise, my great grandmother would have taken a look at tofu and used it as furniture polish. (And “Avoid foods that pretend to be something they’re not.” Tofurkey, anyone?) Also, “Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food.” If you sat my great-grandmother at a table piled high with bowls of cereals and vegetables, she would ask if the roast was still in the oven.

Then there are rules that just make me question Mr. Pollan’s personal experience. “Avoid foods that contain more than five ingredients.” Really? You don’t make much soup, do you? Very few of my favorite recipes contain fewer than five ingredients. As long as those ingredients are themselves “food” by Mr. Pollan’s definition, I don’t see that taking them together as a group should be a problem. Oh, and “It’s not food if it came through your car window.” I have an amazing whole food restaurant near my house, and they have curbside takeout. I get it, he doesn’t like fast food and neither do I, but some of the rules seem to be more general than I’m sure he’d like to say, which is “Don’t eat at McDonald’s.” .”

One of the most impactful rules for me is “Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you cook it yourself.” Happily I know how to cook and I enjoy it, so this would give me White card weigh 300 pounds in no time. I don’t fry things very often, not because it’s a big deal, but because I know it’s bad for me (and I hate wasting so much oil, because I will NOT store or reuse it). This rule will certainly accomplish Mr. Pollan’s goal of keeping him away from processed foods, because once he’s tried home fries, he’ll never want to open a bag again. Unfortunately, a lot of food that is very, very bad for you is very, very easy to cook. However, I am completely behind rule #63, which is “Cook”. We are getting fat with things that we would never put in our mouths if they were not given to us in disguise.

The one that really annoyed me was clearly there to be clever. At least I hope so. “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made from a plant, don’t.” Can’t it be both? Many canned and frozen vegetables are processed in plants, but they often retain more vitamins than fresh vegetables because they are left on the vine or tree longer and then harvested just before cooking or freezing (often inside the 24 hours). your grocery store was on a truck longer than that). And I’m not going to buy cocoa beans and make my own chocolate. And if Mr. Pollan expects me to give up chocolate, we’re in for a problem.

But I’m with him on a lot of things, like “Pay More, Eat Less,” which has something in common with my “Eat Like a Millionaire” plan. Pollan believes, as do most foodies, that American food companies have been so busy trying to make food cheaper that they have sacrificed both taste and nutritional value. I am lucky to live in a place where I can buy Prime organic beef (and across the street) if I want; not everyone can On the other hand, not everyone can afford to pay three times as much for organic bananas, especially when you’re going to peel them.

As with so many good intentions, Pollan’s rules eventually clash with most people’s real lives. How nice if we could all shop at nearby farmers markets and sit with our families at one table for every meal. Mr. Pollan grew up on Long Island and now lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area. His wife is an artist and they both work from home. I have been in the situation of working all day in an office and coming home not to rest, but to start my second job taking care of my home and family. I will never criticize a working mom who makes the occasional stop at Burger Sovereign or Pizza Palace to have five minutes to herself when she gets home. Fortunately, there are more and more quality frozen meals available that may have the odd ingredient, but are orders of magnitude improvements over fast food. Not all processed foods are poison, and I wish Mr. Pollan had included “Read Labels and Become a Smart Eater” in his rules.

Many reviewers have pointed out that many of the rules are common sense, and they are, but sadly, common sense isn’t all that common. Most people who can walk and chew gum know that losing weight requires eating less and exercising more, but millions of diet books are sold every year. Clearly, many of us need a conscience to keep whispering common sense in our ears, especially when passing a Krispy Kreme store, and that’s exactly what Pollan’s Rules are intended to do. The last rule is, “Break the rules once in a while,” so Pollan acknowledges that if Jiminy Cricket doesn’t shut up once in a while, he’s going to get squashed. It’s worth checking out; I recommend the slimmer, cheaper edition that fits in your bag. Consider getting some as stocking stuffers for friends and family who need a little push to kick the fast food habit.

If you want a slightly more detailed explanation of Pollan’s views and aren’t afraid of a book with more paragraphs than slogans, you may prefer Pollan’s earlier work In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Penguin, April 2009). . This book covers much of the same ground as the Rules, so if you get this one, you don’t really need the shorter job. Pollan opens the book with his manifesto’s mission statement: “Eat food. Not too much. Mainly plants.” Of course, he goes on for 256 pages to explain what he means by each of those words, none of which are as obvious as they seem.

I agree with a lot of what Pollan says; in fact, my husband commented that one section “sounded like me,” likely due to Pollan’s use of the term “food-like edible substance” to avoid calling overly processed edibles “food.” Personally, I think Pringles are one of the signs of the apocalypse, and not only do I not allow them in my house, but I won’t dignify them by calling them potato chips (which I love, see above). I refer to them as “Chopped, Pressed, and Formed Dehydrated Reconstituted Processed Potato Food Product” because they don’t deserve any better. But I’ve spent some time in food processing businesses, and I’m just not as afraid of them as Mr. Pollan seems to be. I don’t have the time or inclination to grow all my own food, and I’m happy to pay someone else to do it. Often, I’m happy to pay a little more for someone who does it especially well.

It is best to avoid Pollan’s 2006 work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan really sets out to push his vegetarian agenda and, I think, unfairly characterizes much of the food industry. Having started my college career looking to study veterinary medicine, I have quite a bit of experience in animal processing and slaughter facilities, and all I can say is that Pollan clearly went to different slaughter facilities than I did. In fact, Pollan released a “Young Readers Edition” of Dilemma, and trust me when I tell you that if you give this book to your kids, they may never eat again. Stick to the “Food” headings unless you’re committed to giving up life as you know it and moving to a commune. This omnivore will be here eating my steak.