Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

A book recommended on Reddit about nutrition rules, it’s a short read with about sixty very intuitive rules… Fortunately I read the one on Salt, Sugar, and Fat first, so I was in the right frame of mind to get it; otherwise it would have felt too extreme, especially where he suggests avoiding foods with too many ingredients altogether, always cooking for yourself, or not eating in the car. Many of the tips are obvious to me with a Mediterranean diet, but I will leave a few highlights below. P.S. I really liked his opening: rather than fixating on whether protein, carbs, or fats are to blame, the important thing is to avoid a diet full of processed foods.

Notes

• 1 leg (plants and fungi) > 2 legs (poultry) > 4 legs
• If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re probably not hungry
• avoid foods whose ingredients a child would not be able to pronounce
• allow yourself an occasional indulgence; rigidity does not help
• eat food. not chemical and ultra-processed products
• eat at a table
• snacks should only be natural foods (apple, citrus, nuts, etc.), not processed
• avoid food that boldly proclaims itself ‘healthy’ or ’lite’
• eat colorful (naturally); color indicates what antioxidants the food has
• “The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead” - eat whole grain
• do not eat until you are full; aim for about 70%
• eat slowly. satiety arrives after about 20 minutes

Nice for setting simple rules to follow; I like his style.