•  I just finished reading journalist Michael Pollan's succinct and compelling little book, Food Rules. I couldn't put Food Rules down, and so I thought you might find his research and perspective as interesting as I did. Consider these facts:

There are basically three important things you need to know about the links between diet and health, and these facts are so sturdy that we can build a sensible diet lifestyle upon them:

Populations that eat the Western diet - defined as a diet of lots of processed foods and meat, lots of added bad fats and sugar, lots of refined grains, lots of everything except vegetables, fruits, and whole grains - suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Populations eating a wide range of traditional diets - whether high in seal blubber (like the Inuits), high in maize and beans (like the Central American Indians), or high in grass-fed protein and dairy (like the African Masai) don't suffer from these chronic diseases. This suggests that there is no single ideal human diet, but that humans are exquisitely adapted to a wide range of different foods and a variety of different diets. Except, that is, for one: the relatively new Western diet that most of us are now eating.

People who get off the Western diet see dramatic improvements in their health. Proven research says the effects of the Western diet can be rolled back, and relatively quickly!

Pollan introduces his basic food rules as a means to help us get off this Western diet:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Then he elaborates on these guidelines. Here are his 64 food rules; see if these don't inspire you to change some habits and move forward to better health and more energy:

1. Eat food - choose REAL food and avoid "edible foodlike substances."

2. Don't eat anything your great-grandmother (or grandmother) wouldn't recognize as food.

3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry. Ethoxylated diglycerides? Xanthan gum? Really - we need this stuff?

4. Avoid everything with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Don't fall for the food industry's latest scam: products reformulated to contain "no HFCS" or "real cane sugar."

5. Avoid products that have some form of sweetener listed among the top three ingredients. Labels list ingredients by weight; anything with more sugar than other ingredients has too much sugar.

6. Avoid products that contain more than five ingredients.

7. Avoid products containing ingredients that a 3rd-grader can't pronounce. Keep it simple.

8. Avoid products with health claims. For a product to carry a health claim on its package, it must first have a package, so right off it's likely to be processed rather than a whole food.

9. Avoid products called "lite," "low-fat," or "nonfat." It's better to eat the real thing in moderation than to binge on "lite," "low-fat" or "nonfat" anything.

10. Avoid things that pretend to be something they aren't. Margarine is a good example.

11. Avoid foods you see advertised on TV.

12. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.

13. Eat only foods that eventually rot. Real food is alive and will eventually die.

14. Eat foods made from ingredients you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature.

15. Get out of the supermarket whenever you can. Shop the farmers' market.

16. Make the farmers' market your source for snacks - they only offer real food.

17. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans, not corporations and industries.

18. Don't eat food made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.

19. If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.

20. It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.

21. Avoid things called by the same name in every language (Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles).

22. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

23. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food.

24. Eating what stands on one leg (mushrooms, plant foods) is better than eating what stands on two legs (fowl), which is better than eating what stands on four legs (cows, pigs, and other mammals). An old Chinese proverb.

25. Eat your colors. The best protection comes from a diet containing as many different phytochemicals as possible (and they are colored).

26. Drink the water you steam your veggies in.

27. Eat animals that have themselves eaten well - pasture-raised, cage-free animals that haven't been injected with hormones, anti-biotics, and other chemicals.

28. If you have the space, buy a freezer as a means to store good buys on good food.

29. Eat like an omnivore - diversity of foods means more nutritional bases covered.

30. Eat well-grown food from healthy soil. Organic is the destination.

31. Eat wild foods when you can.

32. Don't overlook the oily little fishes.

33. Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacteria or fungi (yogurt, sauerkraut, soy sauce, kimchi, and sourdough bread).

34. Avoid pre-sweetened and pre-salted products. Sweeten and salt your food yourself.

35. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature (meaning with accompanying fiber).

36. Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.

37. Avoid white flour; use whole grain flours.

38. Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone-ground.

39. Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you cook and bake it yourself.

40. Be whole foods and health conscious and skip the supplements.

41. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks.

42. Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.

43. Have a glass of red wine with dinner. (For those who don't drink alcohol, substitute red grapes, red apples, red anything; it's the resveratrol found in wine that adds important nutrients, not the alcohol.)

44. Pay more (for your food) but eat less of it.

45. Eat less. Calorie restriction and portion size slows aging and prevents cancer.

46. Stop eating before you're full.

47. Eat when you are hungry, not when you're bored.

48. Consult your gut - pay attention to what your body is telling you.

49. Eat slowly.

50. Remember: The banquet is in the first bite, so take time to savor your food.

51. Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it.

52. Eat from smaller plates and glasses.

53. Serve a proper portion and don't go back for seconds.

54. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

55. Eat meals, not snacks.

56. Limit snacks to unprocessed plant foods.

57. Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does, the convenience store/gas station.

58. Do your eating at the table.

59. Try not to eat alone.

60. Treat treats as treats, for special occasions.

61. Leave something on your plate.

62. Plant and eat from a vegetable garden if you have space, a window box if you don't.

63. Cook.

64. Break the rules once in awhile. Cultivate a relaxed attitude toward food - what matters is not the special occasion but the everyday practice - the default habits that govern your eating on a typical day.

Remember: "All things in moderation, including moderation." (Oscar Wilde)