FOOD RULES - RULE #37

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 #37 - "The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead."

This rather blunt bit of cross-cultural grandmotherly advice (passed down from both Jewish and Italian grandmothers) suggests that the health risks of white flour have been popularly recognized for many years. As far as the body is concerned, white flour is not much different from sugar. Unless supplemented, it offers none of the good things (fibre, B vitamins, healthy fats) in whole grains - it's little more than a shot of glucose. Large spikes of glucose are inflammatory and wreak havoc on our insulin metabolism. Eat whole grains and minimize your consumption of white flour. Recent research indicates that the grandmothers who lived by this rule were right: People who eat lots of whole grains tend to be healthier and to live longer.

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