My long history of exercise has painfully thought me that getting in shape is 70% what you eat and 30% what you do. I’ve done a good job at exercising regularly, but never got around to maintaining a healthy diet. That’s why I decided to read Michael Pollan’s book on nutrition. Food Rules tries to answer three main questions:

• What should I eat?
• What kind of food should I eat?
• How should I eat?

I found the last section to be the most interesting. Here are some tips on how to eat:

• Stop eating before you’re full.
• Just take one bite. No other bite will taste as good as the first, and every subsequent bite will progressively diminish satisfaction.
• Buy smaller plates and glasses.
• Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper!
• Try not to eat alone: we’re less likely to stuff ourselves when others are watching, we also tend to eat more slowly.
• It’s not food if it’s called the same name in every language (Big Mac, Cheetos, Pringles)
• Have a glass of wine with dinner. Alcohol reduces the risk of heart disease.

It takes less than an hour to read this book, but unfortunately it doesn’t have much depth or substance. I was disappointed to find the information in this book to be pretty straightforward.