Michael Pollan's Food Rules highlights the concept of eliminating the Western diet and living on a much healthier diet healthy and rich in nutrients. The basis of the book is a rule: eat food, especially vegetables, but not too much. It provides 64 rules to guide you through it. Looking at my diet, I compared it to what Michael Pollan's ideal diet would be. As it turns out, my diet breaks almost every rule Pollan established. My diet is completely at odds with the rules laid out in the book, but there are some things the author mentions that actually apply to my eating habits. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. First part of the book, eat food. Anyone reading this might think, “Well, sure, we all eat food.” But the reality is that we are not really “eating food”. As Michael Pollan says, “we are eating food-like substances.” And the supermarket is the headquarters of food-like substances. Which brings us to Pollan's rule: “Get out of the supermarket whenever you can.” (Pollan, 15) In the last few years I can't remember a meal I've eaten that wasn't made with something we bought at the supermarket. Not all the things you find at the grocery store are terribly bad for you, but chances are that if you go in there, you'll end up with some highly processed food in your cart. This is usually the case with my family, our main food source is the supermarket. It also mentions the ingredient list a lot and mentions rules like “Avoid food products that contain more than 5 ingredients.” (Pollan, 6); or something like “Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human being would keep in their pantry.” (Pollan, 3) In reality, these rules apply to perhaps most of the food Americans consume, and to be honest, I don't think I've gone days without eating anything packaged or processed. The second section of the book is the one titled, Mostly Plants. It explains how our Western diet is heavily dependent on some type of animal protein and how we don't really need to consume the amount of protein we have. It also highlights how any other traditional diet is still much better than our Western diet (Pollan, 41). Most of the dinners I make at home are prepared by my mother and are somewhat traditionally Mexican. Just the basics, what we eat almost every day, are rice, beans, cactus and a few other starters. Another rule my family follows is “If you have space, buy a freezer.” Blackberries and green grapes grow in absolute abundance in our yard during the summer. My mother likes to keep bags of them in the freezer. Freezing food retains nutrients and keeps them longer, so you can have fresh fruit and vegetables at any time. To summarize this section of the book, a plant-based diet with mostly local foods is the way to go, and it's even better if you grow it yourself. The third and final part of the book is: not too much. This is mostly where my diet might fall in the middle. Pollan says to stop eating before you're full (Pollan, 46), but I end up eating to the point of bursting. But in this section it also says to eat at the table (Pollan, 58), which I do 85% of the time. It emphasizes portion control and the fact that we eat too much. It also highlights the importance of meals eaten throughout the day and how breakfast should be the best and most important meal.