"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."

Delving deeper into these words of wisdom from Michael Pollan, based on his research for the novel In Defense of Food, I ordered and have been reading his new pocket-sized book of 64 guidelines to getting off the Western diet, Food Rules.

With the fridge getting empty and cabinets becoming bare, I did a small shopping trip today at the co-op. Based on Pollan's original words of wisdom, let's see how I did:

• 4 clementines
• 1 bell pepper
• mixed salad greens
• cilantro
• 2 organic, fair trade bananas
• 1 dozen eggs - veggie fed, no antibiotics, no animal byproducts and from a local farm
• 32 oz bottle of skim milk - from a local farm
• organic dried mango slices
• organic dried black turtle beans
• long grain brown rice
• garlic hummus tahini - kosher, no preservatives, vegan, and from a local town
• salsa - fresh veggies, spices and apple cider vinegar
• raw honey (a gift for a friend)
  

Pretty much everything on my list is considered a whole food. For the two items made from multiple foods (hummus and salsa), both have very short ingredient lists that are whole foods and spices.

As I mentioned earlier, the 64 rules in Pollan's book are suggestions for a way to give your body what it needs in proper quantities while moving away from the Western diet, which is loaded with processed foods. Pollan tells readers not to try and follow each and every rule, but to at least choose one rule from each section of the book. Below, I've listed each section of the book (he switches the order of his original rule to fit the format of Food Rules), with one rule I followed from that section during my shopping trip.

Eat Food: #14, Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature.

Even though the hummus and salsa are not individual food items, both are made from ingredients that you know exist in nature - tomatoes, peppers, onions, sesame seeds, garbanzo beans, etc.

Mostly Plants: #24, Eating what stands on one leg [mushrooms and plant foods] is better than eating what stands on two legs [fowl], which is better than eating what stands on four legs [cows, pigs, and other mammals]. Chinese proverb.

The bulk of my shopping was all vegetarian, with only 3 animal byproducts: milk, eggs and honey.

Not too much: #44, Pay more, eat less.

It is true that eating organically costs more than eating traditionally grown foods, and that it is often hard for people to afford a totally organic diet. Shopping at a small co-op can also increase the price slightly, since smaller quantities of an item are being purchased to sell. By shopping at a co-op, though, I have ownership and trust those doing the overall purchasing of products for my store to choose only the best. We also have a very large selection of local produce and some packaged foods. I make choices about which items I will pay more for to get organic quality. My next best option is to support the smaller, local farms. As you can see by my grocery list, it was not very lengthy, but the quality is high.