Monday, September 19, 2011

FOOD RULES - RULE #27

from "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual," by Michael Pollan

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PART II: What Kind of Food Should I Eat?
(Mostly plants.)

RULE #27 - Eat animals that have themselves eaten well.

The diet of the animals that we eat strongly influences the nutritional quality, and healthfulness, of the food we get from them, whether it is meat or milk or eggs. This should be self-evident, yet it is a truth routinely overlooked by the industrial food chain in its quest to produce vast quantities of cheap animal protein. That quest has changed the diet of most of our food animals in ways that often damaged their health and healthfulness. We feed animals a high-energy diet of grain to make them grow quickly, even in the case of ruminants that evolved to eat grass. But even food animals that can tolerate grain are much healthier when they have access to green plants - and so, it turns out, are their meat and eggs. The food from these animals will contain much healthier types of fat (more omega-3s, less omega-6s) as well as appreciably higher levels of vitamins and antioxidants. (For the same reason, meat from wild animals is particularly nutritious: see Rule #31 (Blogger Note: scheduled for posting on October 3rd)). It's worth looking for pastured animal foods in the market - and paying the premium prices they typically command if you can.

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

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