If you’re confused by diets and by studies of diets, you may be skeptical about Food Matters. My suggestion is that you try sane eating, see how easy it is, and decide whether it works for you.

I assure you that the logic behind Food Matters is solid, but you may be curious about why a diet high in plants is so much more desirable than one based on animal products and highly processed foods. (For some readers, that sentence alone will be transparent enough to make the answer obvious.) Here’s a brief analysis of the large-scale nutrients in our diet, how they’re measured, and the effects they have on your body. If you want to get right down to the business of planning how to eat, turn to Chapter 7.

Defining calories and caloric density

A calorie is the energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius. (Usually, when we say one “calorie,” we mean 1,000 calories, or a kilocalorie—the amount of energy required to raise a kilogram—1,000 thousand grams—one degree. A food containing 100 “calories” actually contains 100,000 calories, or 100 kilocalories. But we can ignore all this, since it’s all relative anyway.) In the process of metabolism, the energy contained in food, calories, is released during digestion, and is in turn used to fuel our bodies.

Excess energy—too many unused calories—may be stored as fat, which can be converted to energy in times of need. (Part of the problem with the typical American diet is that there are no times of need for most of us. We are not nomads, polar explorers, or subsistence farmers; rather, we cope with the twin beasts of overproduction and overconsumption.)

It’s common to compare the amounts of calories in food by measuring calories per given weight. Broiled rib eye steak, for example, has about 205 calories per 100 grams; broccoli about 34, and chocolate cake about 367. So if you eat 100 grams of chocolate cake you’re eating 333 more calories than if you eat 100 grams of broccoli.

But all calories contain the same energy; as a pound is a pound, a calorie is a calorie. Depending on your size, activity level, metabolism, and so on, you need a certain number of calories to function and to maintain your weight. In theory at least, if you eat more than you need, regardless of the source of the calories—fat, carbohydrate, or protein—you gain weight; if you eat less, you lose weight.

For most of us, the idea is to get the number of calories it takes to maintain weight (or fewer, if we’re trying to lose), along with a good balance of nutrients. And this is easy: As long as your diet isn’t based on junk food, almost any diet that supplies you with enough calories will also supply you with adequate nutrition.

So the idea is to eat food that fills you up (and provides you with nutrients) without giving you more calories than you need. One way to make sure of that is to eat food with low caloric density, and this is less complicated than it sounds—believe me.

This concept, popularized by the authors of The Okinawa Diet Plan, is based on the idea that to feel satisfied, most of us need between two and three pounds of food daily. But two pounds of chocolate cake contains 3,330 calories; two pounds of broccoli contains only 309 calories. And we could probably find even more calorie-dense chocolate cake!

Since consuming less than this amount may leave you feeling hungry, the most effective way to lose weight is to rely heavily on foods that have fewer calories per weight; in other words, choose foods with a low caloric density. Simply put, a pound of cake contains more calories than a pound of broccoli. Most foods lie between the two, but you get the idea: calorie-wise, you’re better off eating 2 pounds of plants than 2 pounds of junk food, animal food, or refined carbohydrates.

There’s no need to count calories, but until you get the hang of caloric density, you might want to keep tabs. To do the math yourself, divide the calories in a food by its weight. The lower the number, the lower the caloric density. So broccoli has a caloric density of 0.3; steak, a little more than 2.0; and chocolate cake, 3.7. (For a comprehensive source for all nutritional data, see the USDA database; go to www.usda.gov and search for “Nutrient Data Laboratory.” You can look up the values for 100 grams of any food; find the number in the kcal column, move the decimal point over two clicks to the left, and you have the caloric density.)

Here’s a table with some major food types and their caloric density. Take a look, and you’ll quickly realize that you can probably estimate almost anything else. Remember—the lower the number, the more you can eat of a food without piling on the calories. It’s really common sense: eat moderate quantities of foods with moderate densities, and eat small amounts of foods at the high end.

Caloric density of some common foods

Sources: The Okinawa Diet Plan; the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory; McDonald’s nutrition facts.

This is only part of sane eating; it doesn’t cover the whole picture. But once you add the other principles outlined in Food Matters, it’s easy to make food choices: emphasize plant foods, and minimize animal products and junk foods with little or no nutritional value, even though their caloric density falls into the same range as that of more healthful whole foods. And even though I advocate plenty of foods with high caloric density, like olive oil and nuts, they’re mostly not foods you’d be eating by the cupful, and they’re in the larger category of nonmeat, nonjunk, non–refined carbohydrate.

Protein

There are people who will argue that the diet I’m recommending doesn’t provide enough protein, or enough complete protein. In part, that’s because the meat industry has tried so hard to make “protein” synonymous with “meat,” which it most decidedly is not. (Per calorie, cooked spinach has more than twice as much protein as a cheeseburger; lentils have a third more protein than meat loaf with gravy.)

Of course we need protein; after water, it is the second most abundant substance in the human body. Basically, protein is a compound of amino acids, and it takes 20 kinds for the body to put together a “complete” protein. The body can produce roughly half, and the rest must come from food (accordingly, they’re called essential amino acids), pretty much on a daily basis. (This also means you don’t need to overeat protein, since your body disposes of what it doesn’t need anyway.) The most convenient source of complete protein is animal foods, but there are some complete vegetable sources, and many nearly complete sources that complement each other.

It might be a stretch to say that protein is overrated, but it isn’t a stretch to say that you don’t need to worry about it much. Any reasonably balanced diet that you devise, any diet that contains a minimum of junk food and refined carbs, is going to give you enough protein.

Whether the importance of protein is overstated or not, almost no one would dispute that the vast, overwhelming majority of Americans get more protein than they need, and that almost all the excess comes from animal products. This isn’t surprising: We grew up eating meat, most of us like it, and meat is quite high in protein. Meat satisfies us culturally and by its flavor and texture, and if you’re sold on our need for a lot of protein, it works in that sense, too. No wonder so many people argue that we need it.

But remember that we eat twice as much meat as the world average, and 10 times as much as people in many developing countries. Though it’s historically accurate to say that just about all cultures have maximized their meat consumption, it’s equally true that people thrive with adequate calories but not a lot of animal protein. If the American high-protein diet were the ideal, you might expect us to live longer than countries where meat consumption is more moderate. But as I noted earlier, that isn’t the case; we’re second-to-last in longevity among industrial nations.

We even eat too much protein by our own government’s generous standards. The recommendation is one-third of a gram per pound of body weight, so if you weigh 150 pounds you should be eating 50 grams a day, according to the USDA. Most of us exceed the RDA by 30 percent or more, and some experts believe that the RDA is already too high.

We do need protein, and athletes and bodybuilders need more than the rest of us. But one-third gram per pound of body weight is plenty. More than that causes calcium loss (though some people eat high-protein dairy specifically in order to increase their calcium intake), increases your need for fluids, and makes your kidneys work harder. And some recent research indicates that protein is related to the immune malfunction that causes food allergies.

So it may be that instead of worrying about not getting enough protein, you should avoid eating too much. If you stop using protein as an excuse to eat animal products, and if you replace animal products with plants, your body will benefit in several ways: you’ll be eating more micronutrients, more fiber, and healthier fats. There’s also some evidence that vegetable protein itself is more beneficial than animal protein.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are sugar molecules found in most foods, especially sugars, starches, and fibers. They are divided into two categories—simple and complex—but the way your body treats the many possible chemical combinations is more complicated than that.

Simple carbohydrates are made from the simplest sugars either alone, as in sugar and other sweeteners, or combined to form the simple starches that are found in refined foods, like pasta and bread made from white flour. Multiple simple carbohydrates are known as complex carbohydrates, which are abundant in whole grains and vegetables.

Carbs themselves are not the problem, just as protein and fat aren’t problems. Just as some protein sources are better for you than others, there are “good” and “bad” carbohydrates. Almost every nutritional expert agrees that simple carbohydrates are at best useless calories and at worst damaging, at least in the quantities in which we consume them. They serve almost no nutritional purpose besides getting calories into your body, something that is not a challenge for all but the most impoverished Americans.

So if you eat anything approaching a typical American diet, you should undoubtedly eat more carbs, but complex ones—legumes, whole grains, and real whole grain breads. (I say “real” because most supermarket breads that are labeled “whole grain” are a hoax, containing, for example, 20 percent whole wheat flour and 80 percent white.)

The problem with most diets, whether low-fat or low-carb, is that in the long run they tend to raise the number of calories you eat. In fact, the low-fat craze caused millions, maybe tens of millions, of Americans actually to gain weight, because they were reaching for “low-fat” but high-calorie carbs. When you drastically reduce carbs—almost all carbs, as some radical diets like Atkins recommend—most people never quite feel satisfied, no matter how much meat they eat. So they end up eating carbs and throwing off the precarious body chemistry that allows a low-carb diet to work in the first place.

Your body can scarcely tell the difference between white flour and white sugar. Either, in excess, will increase the possibility of your gaining weight and developing type 2 diabetes. And there are simple carbohydrates that are even more damaging, especially fructose.

The special case of simple sugars

Let’s talk about corn. You probably eat about a dozen ears of corn a year, yet agribusiness produces over 9 billion bushels a year. Much of that is fed to livestock, but much becomes high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a manufactured sugar that has replaced cane and beet sugars (sucrose) as the primary sweetener for many kinds of foods, from sodas to savory items. Food manufacturers prefer HFCS because it’s cheap, it’s easy to use, and it increases the shelf life of processed foods.

But HFCS creates many problems. If you eat too much sugar of any kind, the liver converts it to fat; but large amounts of fructose (like that contained in soda) seem to stimulate hepatic lipogenesis, the liver’s ability to make fat. And if you eat too much fructose, the liver becomes even better at doing so.

Worse, it appears that the more fructose you eat, the hungrier you feel.

Furthermore, it appears that too much fructose and glucose in the diet may disable the body’s ability to regulate testosterone and estrogen levels. That disability is associated with an increased risk of acne (teenagers’ fears about sugar are correct), infertility, ovarian cysts, cardiovascular disease, and uterine cancer in overweight women.

Put simply, if you eat a lot of sugar (or simple carbs in general), you had better eat a lot less of everything else, or you’re going to gain weight. This is especially true of sugar in the form of soda sweetened with HFCS (as most soda is), because these calories do not fill you up in the same way as calories you get by eating, even by eating sugar. Sadly as a nation, we get an astonishing 7 percent of our calories from soda. (One experiment compared soda and jelly beans; you’re better off with jelly beans.)

Despite all this, we’re not eating less sugar; we’re eating more. As a nation, we now produce about 80 pounds a year per person of corn-based sweeteners (mostly HFCS), an increase of about 16 pounds a year since 1985. Over that same period, per capita sugar production has remained virtually the same: about 63 pounds. Not all of this is actually eaten, but a good estimate is that per capita consumption of sugars is at least 125 pounds of sweeteners a year, or about 5 ounces a day: about 1 cup, or 600 calories.

The right carbohydrates

Whole grains are a different story. As it turns out, the parts of the grain that are removed to make white flour, white rice, and so on, are exactly the parts you want to be eating. Contained in whole grains and seeds are micronutrients that are not found in white carbohydrates—micronutrients whose roles are not yet well defined but which appear to be beneficial—as well as a lot more fiber.

Fiber is the category of carbohydrates that your body doesn’t digest. Though it provides no direct nutrition, fiber is believed to reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, constipation, and other digestive disorders. It’s found in all plants, and generally falls into two types: soluble fiber (that which dissolves in water) and insoluble fiber (that which does not).

Most high-fiber foods have some of both types. To prevent disease, it appears that soluble fiber—which is prevalent in some whole grains (like oats or barley, though not wheat), some legumes (like soybeans and kidney beans), and citrus fruits—may clear the body of fat and regulate the way sugars are burned and stored. It also helps make you feel full and satisfied after eating. For relief of constipation, insoluble fiber (high in most vegetables and fruits, most legumes, and most nuts and seeds) is better. There’s no reason not to eat both.

In fact, most Americans are getting only 15 grams of fiber a day, half the recommended amount. But if you change your diet to emphasize fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and nuts—in other words, if you eat as though food matters—you’ll easily bump your daily fiber up to the recommended 30 grams.

The relationship between refined carbohydrates and type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes (simply high blood sugar, which may lead to diabetes) is a rare area of almost universal scientific agreement. My own pre-diabetic condition essentially went away when I changed my diet to exclude most simple carbohydrates.

Again, this part of the “plan” is simple: instead of eating white flour (this means most commercially available bread, bagels, cake, muffins, pizza, sandwiches, and so on), sugar, processed foods (including many boxed breakfast cereals), or pasta, I eat whole grains—oatmeal, cornmeal (polenta or grits), rice, wheat, quinoa, barley, and some whole grain breads. (But they must be real whole grain breads, not those made with 20 percent whole wheat flour.) By nighttime, I’m really ready for some crusty white bread or cookies, but they make up a very small part of my caloric intake.

Fat

Fat has become a national obsession. Not only how much fat but what kind of fat we should eat is endlessly debated. But you don’t have to participate in this debate, at least not much: once you limit or avoid processed foods, refined carbs, and animal protein, fat becomes nearly a nonissue, even if your major goal is to lose weight.

You actually need quite a bit of fat to live. (Your brain is approximately two-thirds fat, and this fat has to come from somewhere.) For most of human history, it’s been among the hardest nutrients to get enough of. Only when you eat far too much of the wrong kind is fat a problem, and sane diets avoid that problem quite effortlessly.

For a time, there was a near consensus that saturated fat was unhealthy, and that eating too much of it led to heart disease and other diseases. But most foods contain at least some fat, and all naturally occurring or easily produced fats have a role in a healthy diet.

Recent research indicates that the most crucial factor in heart health is the balance of fats in your bloodstream. The right balance means that you’re not adding to the cholesterol your body is already producing, and that you are mitigating any additions with monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids, like the ones found in oily fish and, to a lesser degree, nuts. But that balance is skewed in the wrong direction by the typical American diet; we get too much of the fat that occurs in animals, and not enough of the kind that occurs in plants.

It’s time for a word about cholesterol, not because cholesterol is so important but because the anticholesterol campaign has been so visible for so long that it still concerns people. As with everything about nutrition, cholesterol has turned out to be far more complicated than was once thought. Like fats in general, some cholesterol is “good” for you, and some is “bad” for you. The ratio between the two kinds is probably more important than the total amount. Equally important is that the amount of cholesterol you eat is much less likely to influence the total cholesterol in your blood than the amount of cholesterol produced by your liver.

What determines how much cholesterol your liver makes? Not the cholesterol you eat but the kind of fat you eat. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats tend to raise the good type of cholesterol while lowering the bad. Saturated fat, found most in animals, tends to be more or less neutral—not so bad, in small quantities at least—raising both types of cholesterol equally. Trans fat—the stuff manufactured to produce margarine, solid shortening, and much of the fat that goes into processed and junk foods—raises the bad while lowering the good. (So much for 30 years of advice about eating margarine!)

There is nothing radical in what I’m recommending, and it involves the principles behind Food Matters. If you eat naturally occurring fats—those found in or derived readily from plants and animals, and you eat less of the animal-based fats, your diet will be a better one. You don’t have to give it much more thought than that.

Eating like food matters

The evidence overwhelmingly supports a more traditional diet—what I’m calling sane eating—in place of the modern American diet. Mediterranean, Indian, Middle Eastern, North African, French, and most traditional Asian diets all contain far fewer animal products and refined carbohydrates than ours. Base your preferred diet on any traditional eating style you like; the point is that once you get into the habit of eating sanely, it becomes second nature. That isn’t surprising, because it’s far more natural than eating processed food, junk food, and historically unprecedented amounts of (badly produced) animal products, none of which existed for 99 percent of human history.

Let’s look at the general principles of the style of eating I’m advocating:

 

Eat fewer animal products than average. Say, an average of 1 pound of meat, or at most 2 pounds, each week, or a small serving daily. (If some of these servings are fish, so much the better.) Eat correspondingly small amounts of eggs and dairy foods, and think of all these things as treats, not staples. Milk in your cereal or cream in your coffee isn’t going to make much difference, though alternative milks from plant foods—like soymilk, oat milk, and nut milks—can be decent substitutes. Remember, this is not about deprivation or ironclad rules, but about being sensible.

 

Eat all the plants you can manage. Literally. Gorge on them. Salads, cooked vegetables, raw vegetables, whole fruits—cooked or raw or even, in moderation, dried. There are hardly any limits here (though you don’t want a diet based entirely on starchy vegetables like potatoes). I might say that green, leafy vegetables are probably the most beneficial of all these foods, but you are going to be doing yourself a favor every time you eat a vegetable in place of anything else, so don’t worry about it.

 

Make legumes part of your life. Whenever you eat beans instead of an animal product, everyone wins. Especially if you’re concerned about protein (again, I don’t think you need be), eat legumes daily.

 

Whole grains beat refined carbs. You shouldn’t eat “unlimited” amounts of grains, as you would other plants, but eating grains several times a day is fine. You might have whole grain cereal or bread at breakfast, whole grain bread or a grain dish at lunch, popcorn for a snack, a grain dish at dinner. In any case, eat far fewer refined carbohydrates; they are all treats, not off limits but to be eaten only occasionally (and with gusto).

 

Snack on nuts or olives. These are something of a special case, because they’re high in calories. But you’re going to be eating so many fewer calories that you can afford to eat a couple of handfuls a day. I make my own trail mix and eat it along with some fruit almost every afternoon at work.

 

When it comes to fats, embrace olive oil. That’s where you start. You can use butter when its flavor or luxury is really going to matter to you. Use peanut oil or grape seed oil for stir-frying (or any frying), use dark sesame or nut oil for extra flavor, and you really don’t need much else. (I’m not a fan of canola oil, but use it if you must.) Don’t worry too much about quantity. Don’t start drinking oil, or eating fried food daily; but using oil for dressing or cooking is not a big deal, provided you’re not eating many refined carbohydrates or animal products.

 

Everything else is a treat, and you can have treats daily. Listen to your body: Are you losing weight, feeling fine, getting results that make you and your doctor happy? Keep it up. Are you not getting the results you want? Cut back on treats, and eat more plants. Treats include alcohol (a lot of useless calories and carbs come in the form of wine and other alcoholic beverages), snack food, refined carbs (including good, crusty, artisanally made bread), and sweets of all kinds.

 

Within these general guidelines, eating like food matters is extremely flexible. You can try some of the techniques that work for me, or just eat more sanely at every meal, then snack and allow yourself small indulgences throughout the day. If you eat moderately and always try to put as many plants on the plate as possible, you’ll be in the ballpark.

You might start by eating 10 percent less meat, less refined carbs, and less junk, and replace that food with plants, but I think 25 percent is probably a better starting place, and one that will show you results more convincingly. (Frankly, I didn’t find it very hard to cut junk food out virtually altogether. Meat and carbs are a little more difficult, but remember that you’re not going to give them up entirely.)

Another strategy is to load up your plate with salad, vegetables, and whole grains, and then put some meat, fish, or poultry on it as well. Better still, eat that big plateful of plants first, then go back for a small piece of meat. This is a very “Italian” style of eating.

In the morning, for example, you might eat a couple of spoonfuls of yogurt with a big bowl of fresh fruit and a sprinkle of real muesli or granola. For lunch, have half a tuna sandwich on real whole grain bread with a big salad or vegetable soup. For dinner you and your friends and family go out and share two entrées and load up on vegetable side dishes and appetizers, then order one dessert with four spoons.

Not everyone responds to making changes the same, somewhat drastic way I’ve done. You can transition into this slowly, taking baby steps toward whatever goals you set for yourself. Some suggestions follow.

Cut back on animal protein gradually. Rely on meat for its flavor, not its heft, using more vegetables in your favorite meat dishes. Make pork and beans with half the meat (you’d be amazed at the flavoring prowess of just one sausage) and add extra beans or vegetables or both to the pot. If you’re having company, you might roast a chicken (not two), along with a load of root veggies, and a couple of other vegetables dishes or salads. Next time you grill burgers, make the patties smaller, and toss eggplant, onions, potatoes, summer or winter squash, and portobello mushrooms on the grill too. Or try Meat-and-Grain Loaves, Burgers, and Balls on Chapter 14, which combine ground meat with grains.

It’s the same with dairy foods. Add a couple of big slices of tomato and some thinly sliced pickles and onions to your next grilled cheese sandwich and cut back on the cheese. Start a batch of scrambled eggs by sautéing mushrooms or greens in the pan and try adding in one egg instead of two (or check out the frittata recipe on Chapter 11). Blend a smoothie, using frozen fruit and just enough yogurt or milk to give it some body. And again, give nondairy milks a try; you might like them.

 

Eat Whole Grains with Other Foods. Experiment with uncommon grains like millet or quinoa by stirring a couple of spoonfuls into a stew or soup as it cooks; toss some cooked grains into a salad or a stir-fry at the last minute. Or just play around with new grains—barley makes a great “risotto”—they’re easy enough to like. Try making your own bread.

 

Depend on Seasonings. Good fruits and vegetables rarely need more than a sprinkle of salt, but if you’re feeling hungry for more variety, try different herbs and spices, alone or in blends. Some people find that using seasonings they associate with meat—like soy sauce, pesto, or chili powder—is a good way to make the transition to enjoying plant foods.

 

Always Carry Snacks. This is important, since fast food is everywhere and taking a couple of minutes before you head out will make impulsive stops for junk food less tempting. Dried or fresh fruit and nuts are the easiest options, but with a little planning and a small cooler or thermos, you can travel with hummus and crackers, cut-up vegetables, a container of excellent juice, some olives, a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of granola, a cup of soup, or some fresh popcorn.

Sane shopping

Shopping for sane eating is easy. Even if you shop for tonight’s dinner on the way home from work, you’ll have no trouble pulling something together. This will be increasingly true as you shift from animal products to plants, which generally cook quickly.

You can shop pretty much anywhere. Supermarkets and so-called natural foods stores have plenty of whole grain foods and produce; farmers’ markets are often your best choice for vegetables; and international stores often offer variety that you’re not going to find elsewhere. You don’t need any special food or ingredients to cook sanely, though obviously the more variety you bring to the way you eat, the more you’ll enjoy eating.

In a nutshell: Buy lots of fresh and supplement with some frozen and dried produce. Buy correspondingly less meat, fish, and poultry, but buy the highest quality you can afford, ideally from sources you know and trust. Stay away from any processed food that has more than five ingredients; and ingredients with more than three syllables (in other words, stay away from preservatives and additives).

Let’s tackle these food categories one at a time.

Produce is the most important, and I can’t stress this enough. Make sure your refrigerator is full at all times, mostly with fruits and vegetables. (They take up a lot of room; that’s why they have low caloric density.) Keep bowls of fruit (vegetables, too) on the kitchen counter or dining room table—they’re gorgeous, after all, and if you live with them you’ll eat them. Along with the most perishable types, be sure to stock carrots, potatoes, root vegetables, winter squash, citrus, apples, and cabbage.

I keep some frozen vegetables on hand; my favorites are peas, “fresh” shell beans, Brussels sprouts, and corn. I also stock canned beans and tomatoes, and sometimes pre-washed bagged greens and even cut-up salad bar veggies—anything that makes it easier to eat in my new style.

It’s worth thinking about the amount of packaging and processing involved in your food; try to buy food in bulk, and bring your own bags (you probably know all this). But at the risk of being repetitive, let me remind you that cutting back on animal protein is among the most important environmental contributions you can make, at least when it comes to food.

The same common sense applies when you buy meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. If you’re concerned about animal welfare and want to avoid hormones and antibiotics in your meat, then you’re either going to have to buy organic food (that’s the only label distinction that is even remotely regulated) or purchase animal products from a place you know and trust.

Fish is a special case. Wild fish, obviously, is organic, though there are concerns about mercury and heavy metals in tuna and swordfish. But much of it is also endangered, so it sometimes can’t be purchased with a good conscience. Farmed fish often has many of the same problems as farmed land animals, including the use of antibiotics, environmental damage, and insipid taste.

On the other hand, fish can be the healthiest animal product you can eat. It contains few harmful fats and often high amounts of omega-3s.

This doesn’t mean you should start eating fish seven days a week; it’s still an animal product, and there are still many good reasons to limit your consumption. But if you can find fresh (or well frozen) wild fish that’s not on any endangered species list (the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Web site mbayaq.org has a list, broken down by region), and isn’t on any warning lists (yellowfin tuna, for example, is not currently endangered though it does contain high mercury levels), and you don’t object to it for ethical reasons, it’s probably the best choice in animal foods.

In general, wild fish and well-raised forms of animal protein are going to cost you more, and sometimes a lot more, than their conventional counterparts. But in general, rebalancing your consumption to achieve a plant-centered diet will probably reduce your overall grocery bill. You can enjoy the savings or use it to upgrade the products you buy. A $20 a pound price tag for a couple of servings of fish or meat is unquestionably high, but if you’re eating only 1 or 2 pounds a week, if you’re a typical American it’s probably not more than you’re spending now.

And each time you make a decision to support an alternative to the industrial meat complex, you’re rejecting that type of agriculture in favor of something far better for the planet, and for you. Change will come, and “conventionally” raised meat, fish, poultry, and dairy foods may become more acceptable.

The five-ingredient rule

To eat sanely, you don’t need to know how to read everything on a label, though it’s easy enough. It’s not as easy, though, as this rule (originally “mandated” by Michael Pollan and others): avoid anything with more than five familiar-sounding ingredients.

Before going further, it’s worth mentioning that, applied strictly, this would eliminate conventionally raised meat from your diet, if it were labeled. Because if you listed the ingredients that went into producing it, the label might include alfalfa cubes, barley silage, dried cattle manure, blood meal, coffee grounds, chicken fat, corn and cob meal, ammonium sulfate (for fertilizer), hydrolyzed feather meal, ground limestone, cooked municipal garbage, linseed meal solvent, oat straw, potato waste, dried poultry manure, soybeans, wheat, antibiotics, and any pesticides or herbicides used in the corn and soybean fields, just to name a few.

Meat isn’t labeled but most packaged food is, and though the five-ingredient rule won’t eliminate all junk food from your diet, it will go a long way toward eliminating junk food, and it will simplify your shopping.

Of course there are levels of “junk”: there are potato chips made with two ingredients (potatoes and oil) and ice creams made with only four or five. These, of course, fall into the category of treats. But it’s the chips product, and faux-fat ice cream, and frozen dinners, and all the other stuff made with 15 or 20 ingredients that you should pass up altogether, and forever: there is nothing good about them, even in limited quantities.

There are a few ingredients that I try not to eat even if the product otherwise passes muster. These include hydrogenated anything, monosodium glutamate (sometimes hidden behind terms like “natural flavorings” or “spices”), high fructose corn syrup, and anything I’ve never seen—which includes about 80 percent of the ingredients on junk food labels. (Pasteurized processed cheese product? Guar gum? Silicon dioxide?)

If the package, jar, or box in your hand passes the five-ingredient rule, and you still want to read the label for calories, protein, fiber, and so on, more power to you. But as long as you’re eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts, and a small amount of meat, fish, and dairy food, you’ll be in fine shape nutrient-wise.

On buying organic, or local, or sustainable, or whatever

It’s a personal choice, but if you decide to steer clear of conventionally raised meat, the logical next step is to choose organic, local, and sustainably raised foods. This is especially true if you’re trying to minimize your impact on the environment. But within each of these distinctions is a range of practices, some regulated by the government, others not.

Legally, in order for a food to be labeled “organic” it must be certified by approved third-party companies. The USDA has issued pages and pages of rules and regulations, but the most important are that

• No nonorganic pesticides or fertilizers were used.
• In the case of animals, no antibiotics or hormones were used.
• No genetically modified crops were used at any stage of production.

This is fairly clear, although the benefits remain debatable—that is why I don’t believe “eating organic” is essential to sane eating.

By contrast, “natural,” “cage-free,” and even “grass-fed” are not nearly as well defined or regulated. So unless a label makes statements like “no pesticides” or “no antibiotics,” you have no idea whether or not they were really used. (A true skeptic doesn’t believe such declarations anyway, and I sometimes fall into that camp. But what are you going to do?)

Certified organic products can display the USDA logo as a seal of approval. For single-ingredient foods like produce, pantry, dairy items, eggs, and meats, approval means that the product complies with the USDA standards. For prepared and processed foods, those made with more than one ingredient, the certification system allows for a range of labeling options, from 100 percent (meaning that all the ingredients used to make the product were organic) to “made with organic ingredients” (at least 70 percent). If the food is labeled simply “organic,” along with the shield, it means that between 95 percent and 100 percent of the ingredients are certified organic.

This is not ideal, but it’s the only regulated distinction from conventionally raised food we have. Since all this certification is expensive and onerous, you should expect companies and people who have really earned it to display it. (The fine for selling something uncertified as organic is $11,000; a deterrent for very small producers but not at all for larger ones.) At farmers’ markets or other places where labeling is more ambiguous, you’re going to have to ask, and then use your best judgment.

Organic food, of course, has become big business; with Big Food companies continually snapping up organic companies and creating new organic products, this is among the fastest-growing sectors of the food industry. That raises questions about mass production, mass pollution, and mass distribution—the same issues that are raised about conventionally produced food. To me (and to a lot of other people), all this defeats the purpose, which is to produce food in a way that sustains us and the planet. Can a head of lettuce that travels 3,000 miles by truck, or a piece of fish that’s been flown halfway across the world, still qualify as “organic”?

Enter locally raised food, the trend that led to the term “locavore.” A locavore is someone who eats food that’s grown locally, usually within a couple of hundred miles. The environmental benefit here is that the food doesn’t travel far. But there’s the inconvenient fact that if you live anywhere in the northern half of the country you are not going to have a lot of options come winter. (Some people will argue this is the direction in which we are and indeed should be heading, but it’s a tough sell in twenty-first-century America.) And sometimes economies of scale and distribution may make it not only economically but environmentally “cheaper” to ship products from afar.

Still, eating locally has many more positives than negatives. It makes people think about seasonality, and about how ridiculous it is to eat summer fruits and vegetables in January; ending or limiting that habit would be unquestionably good for the environment (and for the cook; there is joy in eating seasonally).

Locavorism has also been a boon for urban and suburban farmers’ markets, and—more important—for the farmers who supply them. That in turn helps rural economies. Most important, produce fresh from the ground and animal products raised by real humans provide the most nourishment and the most enjoyment.

Local food is usually expensive, and it can’t provide everything for everyone, but it’s sensible and as environmentally sound as it’s going to get. I’d choose nonorganic conscientiously raised local food over corporate organic food in just about every case.

This is especially so because many small farmers skip the cost of getting organically certified but practice sustainable farming, which is often a combination of the best of organic with the best of local. “Sustainable” is a fuzzy term, and it’s not legally defined, but the idea is to produce food in a system (we used to call this a “farm”) that uses modern versions of old agricultural practices and a minimum of artificial inputs. In other words, you may have some livestock in a barn, and you collect the hay used for bedding (rich in animal wastes, naturally) and compost it for use in the fields. Chickens roam freely, pecking for bugs and contributing their own fertilizer to the soil. And of course you harvest eggs, milk, and meat.

Is there enough land? Are there enough knowledgeable farmers? Is there a localized distribution system that can support truly sustainable agriculture? I don’t think so. As you know from earlier discussions, industrial farming was designed to streamline agriculture and resolve these questions, so my guess is that modern sustainability is going to mean a food production and distribution system that looks different from the way it does now, but it’s not going to look like an updated version of the early twentieth century.

The bottom line is this: shop where you like and buy what looks freshest and most appealing to you. Eating as though food matters will heighten your awareness of these complicated issues, and you’ll naturally pay more attention to the impact your choices have on you and the environment. Are your choices going to be perfect and free of hypocrisy? I’d be lying if I said mine were. But I can’t repeat it enough: the aggregate of even the smallest changes equals big changes.

The Food Matters kitchen

You don’t have to cook to eat sanely, but cooking helps, and cooking is what Part II of Food Matters is about. If you already know how to cook, you have a head start. If you don’t, let me tell you that cooking can be a joy. Over the years I’ve developed some techniques that help minimize the work and maximize the yield. Here, then, are the basics of the Food Matters kitchen.

Planning—and cooking—to eat more plants

People never think they have time to plan, but I’m going to make the case that planning (call it thinking ahead if you like) actually saves you time. Start with this premise: You’re going to eat what’s handy. (This is how junk food manufacturers get rich.) If you always have veggies ready for cooking, quick assembly into impromptu dishes, snacking, or taking on the run, that’s what you’ll eat. Here, then, are some simple suggestions.

When you cook at home, wash and prepare vegetables in bulk. Most cut-up veggies, properly stored, will keep for days, with no problem. It takes far less than twice as much time to prep twice as many vegetables: the equipment is out, the water is in the sink, and your attitude is adjusted. Peel a bag of carrots instead of a couple, and put the extra in water in the fridge. Ditto celery. Clean a head of cabbage and cut it into wedges. Wash a couple heads of broccoli or cauliflower and trim them into florets. Spend some time each day doing this sort of stuff (you can talk on the phone at the same time, though sending e-mail is tough), and you’ll always maintain a week’s worth of fresh vegetables, ready to go.

This is especially true for salad greens; it takes hardly any more time to wash a head of lettuce, or two heads for that matter, than to wash a few leaves. Buy a salad spinner, the kind without holes in the bottom for the water to drain out. This is a the best way to wash (and store) all kinds of greens (and other veggies). A spinner with a tight seal can extend the life of veggies for up to a week; leave a few drops of water in the bottom to help retain moisture.

Similarly, cook vegetables, legumes, and grains in large quantities. Here’s a case where you also conserve energy, since it takes just as much energy to roast or grill a pound of vegetables as to cook three pounds. And if you have the oven on to roast a chicken, why not add a pan of vegetables to the rack below? Similarly, you can cook three cups of rice or oatmeal as easily as you cook one cup, or a few pounds of potatoes as easily as one (very handy when you want potato salad). It’s the same effort, and cooked vegetables and grains are easy to store and reheat.

I’m a big fan of leftover finished dishes, but if you set aside plainly cooked extra vegetables, they’re even easier to vary and reuse. And, every week, cook a full pot of beans and at least one pot of whole grains. This stuff keeps really well and has infinite uses.

Precooking is the best way to extend the life of food that is threatening to go bad on you. Chop up a bag of apples, skin on if you like, for a batch of quick applesauce. Make a compote out of assorted fruit that seems a little over the top.

And use your freezer. It’s running all the time anyway, right? In fact it’ll run more efficiently full than empty. (You’re not buying microwave dinners anymore, either.) Fill it with staples, as you would a pantry: frozen vegetables, precooked beans, leftovers, grains and nuts for long-term storage, and so on.

Eating in restaurants or taking out

Eating sanely is easiest when you’re home: you have control over what’s in the house, what you prepare, and what you put on the table. If you stayed at home all the time, you could determine just about everything that went into your mouth.

No one does that. We go to work; we travel; we eat out for pleasure. And it’s outside the home that things become tricky.

This, I think, is where the Food Matters strategy really shines, because among its chief principles is to let yourself go. “Cheating” (it isn’t really cheating; it’s part of the plan) is not only allowed but encouraged. No one wants to give up pleasure if they don’t have to, and I’m not asking you to. If you eat lunch or dinner out, and you don’t want to maintain the general sane eating habits—well, don’t. As I’ve said, what works for me is to be ultrastrict from dawn until dusk, and then let myself go more or less wild, although the wildness has become more moderate as my habits have changed.

So that’s the first rule: don’t let yourself feel too guilty.

Having said that, I know full well the temptations of lunches at work and meals grabbed on the run. And you can’t eat sanely unless you can be disciplined most of the time.

There are two basic strategies. One, carry your own food. Two, figure out in advance what you’re going to eat. If you carry your own food, you’re always safe. At my work desk, I have popcorn (and a little covered-bowl setup that lets me pop it, with or without oil, in the office microwave); various bags of nuts and dried fruit, sunflower seeds, and the like; a few pieces of fruit, which I replenish once or twice a week from home or a nearby vegetable stand; and sometimes some whole grain crackers.

Needless to say, there are many days when this assortment doesn’t cut it and I head upstairs to the company cafeteria for lunch. That’s easy enough: I look for vegetable side dishes (quite cheap, by the way), salads of any and all types, beans, olives, grilled vegetables, and, if the pickings are slim, raw broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots. I sometimes fill two plates with this stuff, and I assure you that while the volume is high the caloric density approaches zero.

The hard part is lunch out. I can make the easy decision, which is essentially to postpone discipline, and allow my one big meal of the day to be lunch. But I’ve learned that in reality—again, I’m me, and you may be different—this is a slippery slope; when I eat a big lunch, I still want a glass of wine later with my light dinner, and the glass of wine often leads to another, and to “a little pasta,” and suddenly my light dinner isn’t so light.

So I try to steer business associates to lunch places where I know I can do pretty well, those that have lots of vegetarian entrées (Indian restaurants are always a good bet), or where I can get a salad, some grilled vegetables, and maybe a piece of fish. Takeout is along the same lines. It’s the same sort of intuitive planning ahead that I discussed earlier in this section, but now someone else is cooking.

On the road, in airports, in strange cities, things are a little more difficult. Sometimes I order two salads, or salad and soup and a side of vegetables. Sometimes I tough it out and buy nuts, carrot sticks, whatever I can find, and figure I’m going to be a little hungry that afternoon.

And sometimes I give up. This is a long-range plan, after all, and what happens on any given day matters not at all. Overeating, or eating “badly,” in the modern American style, is not a physical addiction, like smoking, drinking, or heroin; you can recover from an off day the next day, with no lingering ill effects, even psychological ones.

For a more detailed look at a typical day of eating, head to Food Matters Meal Plans.