Do Corn Flakes come from corn?

The theme at preschool this week is "the farm". Today my oldest came home with a book he made. It started with corn growing on the farm & ended with corn flakes. It even features the 'corn flakes plant' just before the corn flakes conversion. This is particularly profound because I just finished reading "Food Rules" by Michael Pollan. Rule 14: Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature. I'm not sure corn flakes qualifies, but according to this homemade book, they do. We're teaching them early!

If you haven't read the book, it's good and a very easy read. He boils the food rules down to three overall themes: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. I'll share my favs:

Rule 2: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. (My great-granny Duck is my only living grandparent. She lives on a mountain in TN & I wouldn't be surprised if she still only eats the food she grows. She likely still mows her own lawn too, while chewing snuff. I love her!)

Rule 9: Avoid food products with the wordoid "lite" or the terms "low-fat" or "non-fat" in their names. (We've gotten fat on non-fat foods).

Rule 11: Avoid foods you see advertised on television.

Rule 37: The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead.

Rule 39: Eat all the junk you want as long as you cook it yourself. (Ever made french fries?)

Rule 41: Eat like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks.

Rule 46: Stop eating before you're full. (New way of thinking: stop when you have no more hunger vs. when you're full.)

Rule 57: Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.

It really is a good, simple read. A good reminder of some of the things we know, but forget or forget the importance of. I also learned a few new things, particularly related to how we eat. Maybe next I'll tackle one of his deeper books.

Along the theme of "mostly plants", I tried swiss chard for the first time last night and it was surprisingly good. My hubby (who is not a big veggie eater) even liked it. Here's the recipe I used. Enjoy!