Last night I joined several hundred people for a talk and Q&A by Michael Pollan, journalist and author of In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and others, for the West Roxbury Public Library. Some quotes and notes from his talk:
“The subject [of what to eat] got simpler and simpler the deeper I got into it.”
“Nutrition science today is approximately where surgery was in the year 1650.”
“We don’t know what’s in the soul of a carrot, nor do we need to know.”
“There are as many brain cells in our digestive tract as there are in our spinal cord.” (Pause) “What are they thinking?”
“Get off the Western industrialized diet (refined meat, high calories, processed foods, absence of fruit, vegetables & whole grains) in whatever way we can.”
“Don’t eat anything you’ve ever seen advertised on television.” (Not counting Washington State apple grower PSAs and the like.)
“Eat all the junk food you want, provided you make it yourself.” He talked about how messy it is to make French fries at home – the peeling, the cutting, the frying – which labor automatically limits him to indulging about once a month.
What he’d advise Obama: Preserve farmland. Decentralize the food system. Require local procurement in government food purchasing – even having just 1% to 2% of government food purchases come from within 100 miles would make a huge difference.
Next book: he’s just conceiving it, he thinks it’ll be about cooking. Not an actual cookbook. But if you’re going to talk about changing the way you eat, you need to help people figure out how to do that.
On butter: he likes it. He quoted another nutritionist (I didn’t catch her name, it wasn’t Marion Nestle) as saying “I trust cows more than chemists.”
Upcoming film to watch out for: Food, Inc. It comes out next month. Look for appearances by Pollan and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) as well as information about Tyson, Monsanto, and the like.
May 14, 2009 at 5:57 am
My favorite line was (and I’m paraphrasing):
“I have three (?) sisters who are vegetarians. And they’re always trying to get me to try those tofu/soy meat substitutes. They’re like, ‘Try this. It tastes *just* like real bacon.’ And I’m like ‘You haven’t had real bacon in thirty years; how do you remember what it tastes like.’”
It was great to see him.
I get google alerts for West Roxbury, which is how I found this blog, which I’ve never seen before. I will have to check it out now!
May 14, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Thanks for coming by, Paul – yes, that bacon story was classic, too!
I hope you like the blog – it’s a little slow at the moment, but I hope to post more when the farm share starts at Allandale Farm in a few weeks.
May 22, 2009 at 10:06 am
Wicked! One of my co-workers was digging your digging of Michael Pollan. Great stuff!!