I was really keen to read Food Rules by Michael Pollan after I read In Defense of Food and found it really made a lot of sense to me.

It isn’t as in depth as In Defense of Food, rather it lists certain “food rules”.  However, these aren’t rules as such but rather helpful guidelines.  I’m not one for placing lots of rules or restrictions on myself due to my history of binge eating and I find deprivation can and often leads to freaking out.  However, the majority of “rules” I already follow as I am extremely choosy about the foods I put into my body.

Even in the book’s introduction, there is a paragraph that jumps out at me:

People who get off the Western Diet see dramatic improvements in their health. There is good research to suggest that the effects of the Western Diet can be rolled back and relatively quickly. In one analysis, a typical American population that departed even modestly from the Western Diet (and lifestyle) could reduce its chances of coronary heart disease by 80%, its chances of type 2 diabetes by 90% and its chances of colon cancer by 70%.

Yet oddly enough, these sturdy facts are not the centre of our nutritional research or, for that matter, our public health campaigns around diet. Instead, the focus is on identifying the evil nutrient in the Western Diet so that food manufacturers might tweak their products, thereby leaving the diet undisturbed, or so that pharmaceutical makers might develop and sell us an antidote for it. Why? Well there’s a lot of money in the Western Diet. The more you process any food, the more profitable it becomes. The health care industry makes more money treating chronic diseases (which account for three quarters of the $2 trillion plus Americans spend each year on healthy care) than preventing them. So we ignore the elephant in the room and focus instead on good and evil nutrients, the identities of which change with every new study.

That above paragraph jumped out and smacked me in the face, so true it is.  It’s far more profitable to keep treating these chronic diseases than it is to prevent them.

The book then goes on to list 64 food rules – here are a selection of my favourites:

Eat food

These days this is easier than done, especially when 17,000 new products show up in the supermarket every year, all vying for your cash. But most of these items don’t even deserve to be called food  - I call them edible food-like substances. They’re highly processed concoctions designed by food scientists, consisting mostly of ingredients derived from corn and soy that no normal person would keep in the pantry, and they contain chemical additives with which the human body has not long been acquainted. Today, much of the challenge of eating well comes down to choosing real food and avoiding these industrial novelties.

Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top 3 ingredients

Labels list ingredients by weight, and any product that has more sugar than other ingredients has too much sugar (for an exception to this rule, there is rule 60 which talks about special occasion foods). Complicating matters is the fact that, thanks to food scientists, there are now some forty types of sugar used in processed foods, including: barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetener, dextrin, dextrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, turbinado sugar and so on. To repeat, sugar is sugar. And organic sugar is sugar too.  As for non-calorie sweeteners such as aspartame or splenda, research (in both humans and animals) suggests that switching to artificial sweeteners does not lead to weight loss, for reasons not yet well understood. But it may be that deceiving the brain with the reward of sweetness stimulates a craving for even more sweetness.

Avoid food products that make health claims

This sounds counter-intuitive, but consider: For a product to carry a health claim on its package, it must first have a package, so right off the bat it’s more likely to be a processed rather than a whole food. Then, only the big food manufacturers have the wherewithal to secure FDA-approved  health claims for their products and then trumpet them to the world. Generally, it is the products of modern food science that make the boldest health claims and these are often founded on incomplete and often bad science. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to contain trans fats that give people heart attacks. The healthiest food in the supermarket – the fresh produce – doesn’t boast about its healthful-ness because the growers don’t have the budget or the packaging. Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health.

Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not

Imitation butter – aka margarine – is the classic example. To make something like non-fat cream cheese that contains neither cream nor cheese requires an extreme degree of processing; such products should be labelled as imitations and are best avoided. The same rule applies to soy-based mock meats, artificial sweeteners and fake fats and starches.

If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t

This one speaks for itself!

It’s not food if it arrive through the window of your car

As does this one!

Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself

There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking a soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard to make treats so cheap and easy that we’re eating them every day. The french fry did not become America’s most popular vegetable until industry took over the jobs of washing, peeling, cutting and frying the potatoes – and cleaning up the mess.  If you made all the french fries that you ate, you would eat them much less often, if only because they’re so much work. The same holds true for fried chicken, chips, cakes, pies and ice cream. Enjoy these treats as often as you’re willing to prepare them – chances are good it won’t be every day.

Stop eating before you’re full

Nowadays, we think it is normal and right to eat until you are full, but many cultures specifically advise stopping well before that point is reached. The Japanese have a saying – hara-hachi-bu - counselling people to stop eating when they are 80% full. The Ayurvedic tradition in India advises eating until 75% full; the Chinese specify 70% and the prophet Muhammad described a full belly as 1/3 food, 1/3 liquid and 1/3 air. There’s also a German expression that says “You need to tie off the sack before it gets completely full”. Here again, the French have something to teach us. To say “I’m hungry” in French you say “J’ai faim” – “I have hunger” – and when you are finished, you do not say that you are full, but “Je n’ai plus faim” – “I have no more hunger”. That is a completely different way of thinking about satiety. So, ask yourself, not Am I full but, Is my hunger gone?  That moment will arrive several bites sooner.

Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does

American gas stations now make more money inside selling food (and cigarettes) than they do outside selling gas.  But consider what kind of food this is: Except perhaps for the milk and water, it’s all highly processed, imperishable snack foods and extravagantly sweetened soft drinks in hefty twenty ounce bottles.

Conclusion

All in all, the book didn’t really teach me anything I don’t already know.  However, it’s good to read it as a reminder as to why I ditched the typical Western diet and cook the majority of my own meals and limit processed/convenience/junk foods.

If you’re interested in the quality of your food, I would highly recommend this book.  If you eat a highly processed diet, I would DEFINITELY recommend reading this book.

©2012 JAG's Fitness Blog. All Rights Reserved.

A little overdue but I promised a review of the women’s fitness magazine that I bought and said I would write a comparison to the men’s fitness magazines that I also read.

I will be comparing:

• Cover information
• Nutritional advice
• Fitness advice
• Other health advice
• Overall motivation after reading

.

Women’s Fitness

Cover:

I have to admit, the cover of this magazine really did not draw me in at all.  The only reason I purchased it was to give it a fair try and see if it compares in any way to Men’s Fitness.  With slogans emblazoned on the cover such as “Tone up with tennis”, “Sculpt your shape” and “8 easy fat burners” I wasn’t expecting much to be honest.  However, it wasn’t all bad.  They also claim to help you “Beat bingeing forever” and have a “Pro-Age Special” with articles on how to boost your brain, time-fighting superfoods and no-needle beauty.

The model on the cover would not inspire me at all to be honest, she doesn’t have the body type that I aspire to and is very thin with very little muscle definition.

Nutritional Advice:

The thing I did like about Women’s Fitness is that they didn’t include crappy 1200 calorie diet plans like most other female fitness mags.  There are a few articles about nutrition throughout the magazine such as 6 ways to de-stress with food, Going organic – is it worth it? and a Staying Young Recipe section which includes a decent range of tasty sounding meals.

Fitness Advice:

There were some pretty good fitness tips and advice throughout the magazine including several exercise plans.  There was a section on running which contained some useful information, a kit free workout, and an “exercise of the month” section featuring the deadlift – shame the model demonstrating it was using a crappy weighted bar and not a proper barbell.  The one thing that did grate on me a little is that the dreaded Tone word was used freely throughout the entire magazine, including a section entitled Shape up in 6 weeks written by a personal trainer claiming to help women “get toned at home”.

There was a good section for those that want to get fit for tennis including a range of exercises that will complement training.  There was also an article on powerplate training.

Other Health Advice:

There was quite a lot of other general health advice in this magazine and I enjoyed reading it.  They included Why do we overeat, Adult anorexia, Know your limits (about alcohol), Understanding diabetes and 3 ways to treat migraines.

The articles were well written and easy to read.

Overall Motivation After Reading:

Did I feel motivated and inspired after reading this magazine?  Not really.  It was a pleasant enough read but in my truthful opinion, there was too much fluff and not enough quality content.  It did read very similar to most other female fitness magazines on the market and the only thing that stands this one apart from any of the others that I have read is that this magazine promotes strength training.  It’s just a shame they have to trick women by calling it “toning”.

Would I buy it again? No, it’s not for me.

Men’s Fitness

Cover:

I prefer the cover on Men’s Fitness, not only because of the hunk with abs of steel but because the slogans are more likely to attract me to it. Abs made easy, Instant tips to power up your squat and Wild Fitness – Get fast and strong without the gym are articles that would make me want to buy this.

Nutritional Advice:

I have always trusted much of the nutritional advice given out in Men’s Fitness and I really like that they publish a diet plan every month to coincide with an article they have written about – this month was 35 low cost meals to help you lose fat on a budget. There is also articles on 6 dangers of being too skinny, 6 pack on a plate and Eat to build muscle.

Fitness Advice:

The thing I absolutely *LOVE* about Men’s Fitness is the range of exercise they cover.  It’s not all about pumping iron!  In this issue alone there are articles on Fell Running, Improving grip strength, Off road biking, Sailing on a catamaran, Getting fit in nature without the gym (including log carrying, rock climbing heaving rocks!), The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, Six Pack Science, Pyramid Training, Mastering the Pull Up, Range of Motion, Building bigger biceps and a Kettlebell speed circuit.

As you can see, you get a lot more fitness advice from this magazine and less guff like in the female version.

The thing I also love about Men’s Fitness is that they have their own team who participate in various races and endurance events all over the world and write about them in each issue.  Team MF took part in Off road biking, Wolf Trek – an epic outdoor challenge across 72.4km of Highland Wilderness, A leg of the iShares cup – a series of catamaran races across Europe and Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc.

Other Health Advice:

There were no articles on general health like there were in Women’s Fitness and I think this might be good for MF to include.  However, as it’s a male orientated magazine I doubt reading about how to get an erection or stop yourself from going bald would interest me ;-)

Overall Motivation After Reading:

I read this magazine from cover to cover and do so with all the issues of Men’s Fitness that I purchase.  There is always such a fantastic range of information and advice covered that it really does hold my interest.  Reading MF always makes me want to get out and do something different.

Would I buy it again?  Absolutely!

So, as you can see, my brief encounter with female fitness magazines is over – I’ll stick to the dudes’ version thanks!

©2012 JAG's Fitness Blog. All Rights Reserved.