health and eating are connected

Ray Collins' newsletter is proving to be quite a help to me in staying abreast of what seem to be the latest discoveries about diet and health, with a useful bit of evaluation thrown in. Now you can enjoy a longer, healthier life... without living like a saint! As a former wholefood shop employee who still takes this stuff seriously, this is a Good Thing! In his latest newsletter, Ray quotes Michael Pollan with some helpful advice about eating couched in terms that may help most of us in a 'rule of thumb' sort of way. They're not all totally consistent -my great grandmother probably wouldn't recognise Japanese or Indian food as food, for example- but in giving pictures of the kind of thing meant, they are pretty useful.

* Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognise as food.

* Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number or that include d) high fructose corn syrup.

* Avoid food products that make health claims.

* Shop at the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle - processed foods dominate the centre aisles of the store, while fresh food lines the walls.

* Get out of the supermarket whenever possible -shop at the farmer's market or local markets instead.

* Eat mostly plants, especially leaves - This means don't eat too many seed s and seed- based products and oils. Why? Because leaves contain omega 3 fatty acids which are good, but seeds don't as they contain too much omega 6 fatty acid, which isn't good for you.

* You are what you eat eats too - the diet of the animals we eat has a bearing on the nutritional quality of the food itself. A diet of grass means much healthier fats than a diet of seeds and grain.

* Eat well-grown food from healthy soils, this means organic, or well-famed non-organic soil.

* Eat wild foods when you can.

* Be the kind of person who takes supplements.

* Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks,. People
who eat according to the rules of traditional food culture are healthier than people eating a contemporary western diet.

* Regard non-traditional foods with scepticism.

* Have a glass of wine with dinner. The benefits to
your heart increase with the amount of alcohol
consumed up to about four drinks a day
(depending on your size)