Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I'm reading an article from 2007 on the New York Times Magazine website. It is a long article. I'm on page 3 of 12 right now. But I am finding it so interesting that I want to let everyone know about it. Here is the link to the easy to read version. I think you will really enjoy the article even if you don't read the whole thing.

I love the conciseness of the statement, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." That's the first line of the article.

This statement captures a huge amount of wisdom in only seven words. It would be hard to improve that statement without making it more complex. But it is missing a couple highly important concepts, so I do want to modify it a bit.

We need to incorporate the concept that taste is at least as important as -- probably much more important than -- nutrients. Using the six tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent, pungent [i.e., spicy]) we can heal ourselves and maintain excellent health. By using taste as a guideline for our eating, we can learn to eat for out body type, which is the second important concept missing from the seven-word nugget of wisdom above.

With this thought in mind while reading the NY Times article, I think you will see how the damaging concept of chemical nutrients could be replaced by knowledge of the healing effects of taste to bring nutrition back from the realm of the food chemistry lab into the real world of sensory pleasure and good health.

Here is the best modified statement I have come up with so far. Can anyone improve it?

Eat real food --  moderately, and mostly plants -- by taste for the season and your type.

(Unless you know Ayurveda already, that compact statement probably needs more explanation, but that will have to wait for another day.)

Check out some of the nutrition books on the FitEyes Recommended Reading List if you are interested in this topic.