Unhappy Meals

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dillema, wrote a great common sense article for the New York Times back in January (I know, it was 6 months ago, but if you haven't already noticed, I don't keep up with the times very well). The article, titled Unhappy Meals, has a simple message:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

While I don't agree with his meat-as-a-side-dish views, the key to his message is the Eat food portion. What is meant by this is simple:

"...you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat."

It seems pretty common sense, but I'm constantly amazed when clients bring me food products that they think are healthy because they have some health claim printed on their package. This is why I love the Paleo Diet so much, it's simple. If you stick to eating meat, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, you don't have to worry about what effects all of the un-pronounceable ingredients on the package of your food are going to have on your body, because real food doesn't come in a package with a list of ingredients.