The Michael Pollan Prescription: How to Eat Better and Avoid the Industrial Diet
(Page 2 of 6)
Nov. 4, 2008
By Betsy Model
Your first book that was specific to the ethics of eating, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, raised a firestorm of its own. You took on big agriculture, monoculture in farming, the livestock industry, the definition of ‘organic,’ and a whole host of other topics that may have left readers feeling … hungry. Was In Defense of Food already in the works or was it readers’ reaction to The Omnivore’s Dilemma that spawned this new book?
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In Defense of Food really grew out of the questions I was hearing from readers and audiences when I went around the country speaking about The Omnivore’s Dilemma. There were people for whom The Omnivore’s Dilemma had deepened their dilemma rather than ease it. Plus I kept running into this (generic) reader who would tell me “I’m halfway through your book and I loved it but I can’t go any further.” I would ask why and he or she would say “Because every time I turn the page there’s something else I can’t eat anymore! I thought organic was OK, I thought ‘natural’ was OK, but you’re telling me that ‘no, no, it’s not what you think.’ I’m afraid if I keep reading I’m going to get to the end and I’m [laughs] going to starve because there will be nothing left to eat.” That was a little disheartening!
Now, I would have urged them to press on because the book got much more hopeful and optimistic as it moved on [laughs] but at the end I realized I hadn’t given people what they really, clearly wanted: some concrete, practical guidance and advice … a handbook. So the new book has politics, but the politics are somewhat covert in that while I am addressing people’s concerns about their health, in fact the solutions to those concerns lead to a very different food system that would, in many ways, be wonderful. And not just for their health. So [laughs] that’s why it’s a manifesto.
So, is it fair to say that “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.” is the sum of your manifesto?
Yeah. You know, it’s not exactly “Workers of the World Unite,” but I mean it does come down to that. There is politics to it, because if people would start eating food and not edible foodlike substances, much would change. They would leave supermarkets and they would take their money to farmers markets. They would pay attention to where their food comes from and they would stop eating processed food.
What About the Grocery Stores?
OK, so what if enough readers of your book, and readers of Mother Earth News, did what you suggest and stopped buying the majority of their groceries at the supermarket and at superstores? Where would that leave the stores — who receive much of their indirect income from corporations and agri-business entities — and the economy of the communities they’re in?
Well, the first thing we’d have would be revival of local agriculture which would take more people on the farms — both to work and to buy — and I think we’d see improvements in public health. Part of my message is not just about what you eat, but the fact that if you’re going to buy real food you need to cook it [laughs]. Suddenly you’re eating meals. Suddenly you’re sitting down with your friends to eat. That has a positive effect on your family life and your community life. The industrial food system would shrink as these other alternative food systems grew and that would be all for the good. The corporations will adapt. I wouldn’t worry about them!
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