“director of nutrition studies and professor of medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He is a friendly man, with a ready laugh and relaxed manner. Though nearing sixty, he looks at least fifteen years younger. (This seems to be true of most people in Palo Alto.) We met at a restaurant in a neighborhood shopping center. He arrived, almost inevitably, on a bicycle. Gardner is a vegetarian. I asked him if that was for health or ethical reasons. “Well, actually originally it was to impress a girl,†he said, grinning. “That was in the 1980s. But then I decided I liked it.†In fact, he liked it so well he decided to start a vegetarian restaurant but felt he needed to understand the science better, so he did a PhD in nutrition science and got sidetracked into academia. He is refreshingly reasonable about what we should and shouldn’t eat. “In principle, it’s really pretty simple,†he says. “We should eat less added sugar, less refined grain, and more vegetables. It’s essentially a question of trying to eat mostly good things and avoiding mostly bad things. You don’t need a PhD for that.†As we part, he adds an afterthought. “There’s a really easy way to do food shopping in supermarkets,†he says. “Just stick to the outside aisles. The aisles in between are almost entirely filled with processed foods. If you stick to the outside, you will automatically have a healthier diet.†Bryson, Bill. The Body (p. 246). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Bryson, Bill. The Body (p. 246). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Bryson, Bill. The Body (pp. 245-246). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ”
