Following is an adapted excerpt from Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating by Mark Bittman (Simon & Schusterr). Excerpted by permission.
 
The evidence overwhelmingly supports a more traditional diet--what I'm calling sane eating--in place of the modern American diet. Mediterranean, 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 two 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.)

  • Eat all the plants you can manage

  • Make legumes part of your life

  • Whole grains beat refined carbs

  • Snack on nuts or olives

  • When it comes to fats, embrace olive oil

  • Everything else is a treat, and you can have treats daily

For more detail on Mark Bittman's principles for sane eating, see Food Matters, pp. 92-94.