Life Changers

My mom has been sending out a couple of emails to my sisters and I about food and what's healthy, what's not. Which got me thinking about some books I've read that were life changers and go with the emails she has been sending, so I thought I'd give a little book review here. Maybe my sisters and mom will appreciate the review?

In Defense of Food: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Michael Pollan followed up the very good but very thick Omnivore's Dilemma with this book, and that phrase is what his eating philosophy boils down to. It's not about dieting. It's about eating real food-- not chemicals from a lab, but things grown or raised in a field. Not because other foods are full of nasty things that have unknown impacts on our bodies, (and you'd probably steer clear of if you actually knew what it was and where it came from), but also it's better for the environment. That's "eat food". The rest is probably easier to figure out, so I won't explain what is meant by "Not too much. Mostly plants." Anyway, this book has changed how I make decisions about what food to buy, how I cook, and how I understand American agriculture and our food culture. It's an easy read (quicker than Omnivore's Dilemma!) and it just seemed to make sense, for the health of both for humans and the planet. I take it (like all diet advice) with a healthy dose of skepticism, but the great thing about his approach is that it's just common sense.

I've seen this beautiful edition of Food Rules at Anthropologie, but I'm sure it's elsewhere, too. It's full of gorgeous illustrations; even though I have an older edition, I've been tempted to buy this one because it's so pretty.

Food Rules: A common complaint after reading In Defense if Food is "great, I know all this background information on why I should change my eating habits, but I don't get how to make it work in practice." Enter Food Rules. Here, Pollan explains how to put his approach to food into practice with fairly easy to follow rules. For example, here are some rules:

• "Treat treats as treats"
• "Shop the outer perimeter of the supermarket"
• "Eat whatever you like, as long as you make it from scratch, at home."
• "Don't buy anything your mother/grandmother wouldn't recognize (such as GoGurt)"
• "Don't buy anything with an ingredient you can't picture in your pantry" (xanthum gum, anyone?)
• "Don't buy anything with more than 5 ingredients." 
• "Eat all your meals at a table-- not at your desk or your couch or..." (I'm bad at following this one.)

There are exceptions to the rules, and of course it's hard to follow the rules 100% of the time, but this book made it so simple to put what I read in In Defense of Food into practice. I read this 18+ months ago and I am still grocery shopping, eating, and making food related decisions with this book as a guide. I'm not saying I keep it with me and refer to it while I'm strolling the aisles at Safeway, but it made enough of an impact that I still mentally flip through the rules as I decide what to put in my shopping cart.

And a non-food book: The Happiness Project. This too is a life changer. We read this in my book club, and at first I was hesitant. "Really? A self-help book?" (It is not a self-help book, actually. And if it were, it would be awesome. The book club ladies do not choose bad books.) This is a woman's memoir from spending a year doing things that have been proven to actually make you happier. In the end, she distills her advice to things you can do that really do make you a happier person, and nothing in it is rocket science. Clearing clutter, getting enough sleep (and improving the sleep you're getting), being true to yourself-- all are things that just make you a happier person, it turns out. Some of these things are to help manage stress, some help you stay more organized, some make you a better spouse or parent or friend, but all in all, it adds up to an increase in happiness.

I have to mention that the one phrase she mentions relating to parenthood that resonates the most is this:

"The days are long, but the years are short." (Click the link to watch a video on it.) Countless times over the last 9 months, I've said this to myself as I've gotten out of bed to take care of Xavier in the middle of the night. Yes, I am so exhausted at the end of every long day-- and by the way, they all are long days, when I'm home during the day with X, and going to school at night-- but someday, if I'm lucky, I will look back at this time and marvel at how quickly it passed and how valuable these days of raising my son were. When I remember this phrase, everything changes and the challenges of parenthood on that particular day don't seem as big or important. My perspective changes. The days are long, but the years are short.

Since reading The Happiness Project, I've been following her blog, which has lots of tips that just make life, well, happier.  My stress level has gone through the roof with starting law school, and it's hard to find energy to do the things she recommends in her book and her blog, but the truth is, I'm happier when I do. It's worth it. Because the days are long but the years are short.

So there you have it, 3 life changing books I've read in the last 2 years. Have you read them? If you haven't, you should!