Michael Pollan's 3 New Food Rules

If you follow Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, etc.), you probably know that the food guru is in the process of updating his popular book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. He's adding more rules, and he asked Slow Food members to help him. Recently he picked three of them. And since this is Lent, just the time to be thinking about food like a NCAA committee member would, we thought we'd tell you what they are.

From the 4,000 people who wrote in, Pollan picked the following:

Place a bouquet on the table and everything will taste twice as good. - Gisbert P. Auwaerter, Cutchogue, NY

Love your spices. They add richness and depth to food without salt. - Claire Cheney, Jamaica Plain, MA

When you eat real food, you don't need rules. - Mandy Gerth

Okay, not nearly as funny as a few that Pollan liked but ultimately rejected, like "The French fries you pick off someone else's plate carry no calories." or "White bread is only good for picking up glass or cleaning typewriter keys." Funny, yes, but not helpful.

As Pollan told readers yesterday on the Slow Food USA Blog, "Your contributions vindicated the premise of both the book and of Slow Food, which is that the conversation of culture has more to teach us about how to eat healthily and happily than all the nutritional studies, government advisories, and food industry promises." The new edition of the book will be published in November.