Last year I published
Food Rules
, a short book offering 64 rules for eating well.
Food Rules struck
a chord with many people, who found that it helped them navigate what
has become a treacherous food environment, whether in the supermarket or
restaurant. Many of the rules were submitted by readers, and since
publication I have received a number of excellent new ones. So I’ve
decided to publish an expanded edition, with additional rules and also
illustrations, which the painter Maira Kalman has agreed to create.

The premise of
Food Rules is that culture has much to teach us
about how to choose, prepare, and eat food and that this wisdom is worth
collecting and preserving before it disappears. In recent years, we’ve
deferred to the voices of science and industry when it comes to eating,
yet often their advice has served us poorly, or has merely confirmed the
wisdom of our grandmothers after the fact. “Eat your colors,” an
Australian reader’s grandmother used to tell her; now we hear the same
advice from nutritionists, citing the value of including in the diet as
many different phytochemicals as possible.

I’ve also found that many ethnic traditions have their own memorable
expressions for what amounts to the same recommendation. Many cultures,
for examples, have grappled with the problem of food abundance and come
up with different ways of proposing we stop eating before we’re
completely full: the Japanese say “hara hachi bu” (“Eat until you are
4/5 full”); Germans advise eaters to “tie off the sack before it’s
full.” And the prophet Mohammed recommended that a full belly should
contain one-third food, one-third drink, and one-third air. My own
Russian-Jewish grandfather used to say at the end of every meal, “I
always like to leave the table a little bit hungry.”