One of my favorite writers is author and Professor Michael Pollan. Pollan is best known as a long-time contributor to The New York Times Magazine and for his best-selling books “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” He also wrote an amazing account of designing and constructing a one-room structure with his own “unhandy” hands in “A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams.”
My favorite, though, is his “Food Rules,” a small, slim book, yet filled with enormous content. Written is his clear and clever style, his 64 rules not only offer guidance for eating but also how to write powerful, concise ideas. Here are some examples:
Rule #18- Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.
Rule #20- It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.
Rule # 63- Cook.
I often pull out this book whenever I have written some long-winded paragraphs or run-on sentences, and think about how he pared down his 64 rules even more to:
Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.
