FOOD RULES - RULE #55

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

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PART III: How Should I Eat? (Not too much.)

Rule #55 - Eat meals.

This recommendation sounds almost as ridiculous as "eat food," but nowadays it too no longer goes without saying. We are snacking more and eating fewer meals together. Sociologists and market researchers who study American eating habits no longer organize their results around the increasingly quaint concept of the meal: They now measure "eating occasions" and report that we have added to the traditional Big Three - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - an as yet untitled fourth daily eating occasion that lasts all day long: the constant sipping and snacking we do while watching TV, driving, working, and so on. (One study found that among Americans ages eighteen to fifty nearly a fifth of all eating takes place in the car.) In theory, grazing - eating five or six small meals over the course of the day - makes sense, but in practice, people eating this way often end up eating more, and eating more processed snack foods. So unless you can confine your grazing to real food, stick to meals.

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Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.