Don't eat egg salad from a vending machine.

Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), who’s written a lot about nutrition science and the politics of food, now gives us something with a more home-style flavor: personal food rules from real people (mom’s advice, from real moms). He’s collected these bits of “food wisdom” from hundreds of submissions and will publish them as part of a book in January. Until then, here are a few of his favorites:

“Eat foods in inverse proportion to how much money its lobby spends to push it.”

“Never eat something that is pretending to be something else.”

“It’s not food if it comes to you through the window of a car.”

“If a bug won’t eat it, why would you?”

“If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry.”

“Avoid snack foods with the “oh” sound in their names: Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, Hostess Ho Hos, etc.”