Democracy Now: "Omnivore's Dilemma" Author Michael Pollan's New Advice on Buying Food: "Don't Buy Any Food You've Ever Seen Advertised"

Contents

“Omnivore’s Dilemma” Author Michael Pollan’s
New Advice on Buying Food:
“Don’t Buy Any Food You’ve Ever Seen Advertised”

Democracy Now!
Run-time 21:10
Air-Date: May 14, 2009
Amy Goodman interviews Michael Pollan
Available in several audio, printed and video formats.

"Michael Pollan is one of the nation’s leading writers and thinkers in this country on the issue of food. He is author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. In light of what he calls the processed food industry’s co-option of "sustainability" and its vast spending on marketing, Pollan advises to be wary of any food that’s advertised."

AMY GOODMAN: Energy, healthcare, agriculture, climate change, global outbreaks like swine flu—what do all these topics have in common? Food. That’s right, none of these issues can really be tackled without addressing some of the fundamental problems of the food system and the American diet.

Well, my next guest is one of the leading writers and thinkers in this country on food. Michael Pollan is a professor of science and environmental journalism at University of California, Berkeley, author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which just came out in paperback. Michael Pollan joins me now in our firehouse studio for the rest of the hour.

Michael Pollan discusses various topics with Amy Goodman, including:

• "Swine-flu" and industrial agriculture,
• sustainability of genetically modified foods,
• Monsanto, China and food production in Africa,
• return of real sugar versus high-fructose corn syrup vis. highly processed foods and health claims,
• food marketing,
• USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the Food & Drug Administration and the School Lunch Program,
• First Lady Michelle Obama's organic garden makes the pesticide industry shudder,
• edible food-like substances – products of food science,
• the food system, health-care reform and the catastrophe of the American diet,
• large corporations buying farmland in developing countries, and
• the healthcare crisis, climate change and our food system.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have twenty seconds left, but you wrote a long letter to President Obama, to the “Farmer-in-Chief,” as you put it. What’s the most salient point in it?

MICHAEL POLLAN: The most salient point is simply, you are not going to be able to tackle either the healthcare crisis or climate change unless you look at our food system. In the case of climate change, food is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gases, the way we’re growing food, the way we’re processing it and the way we’re eating. And the healthcare crisis, as I’ve talked about. So we need to address it. It’s really the shadow issue over these other two issues.

Visit Democracy Now! to read, view or listen to this interview.