In his 20 years of reporting on food, Michael has picked up a number of rules to eat by. They're now collected in an eater's manual, Food Rules. His guidelines to good eating include:

1: Eat food.

2: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

7: Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce.

13: Eat only foods that will eventually rot.

39: Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

"It's not that hard to eat well if you're willing to put a little more time into it, a little more thoughtfulness into it and, yes, a little bit more money," he says.

More on Michael's food rules