michael pollan my man

he was at brown last night, and i joined the overflowing crowed and watched him speak via simul-cast in lower solomon. he is such an intelligent, witty, earthy, engaging, charismatic speaker - i loved his talk. he was supposed to speak only for 40 min, but he ended up talking for over an hour, and the time flew like it was nothing. he was just great. again, most of the things he said, which was pretty much all from his newest book "in defense of food: an eater's manifesto", i knew already. but i certainly learned A LOT about the backdrop of the american food culture (or lack thereof to be exact) and how we came to be where we are now. the idea of nutiritionism was something i had not really thought about, and specific historical events (government endorsed or otherwise) especially in regards to scietific "findings" or "evidence" and how it took the true meaning out of food or in the process of preparing and eating food was interesting to learn about. he concluded by talking to us one of my own beliefs; the importance of culture and the wisdom of eating from which it arises. for example, in his words "don't eat things your great-grand mother would not recognize as food, like go-gurt" which i thought was hilarious but oh so true. it doesn't have to be great-grand mother - it could just be my mother. she would NEVER eat something like go-gurt. disgusting. and, pollan also said the dietary health, the "healthy eating habits" is not just about nutrition, but it should be considered as a chain of events, and each component should be healthy and sustainable, because truly "healthy" food cannot be produced if it comes from unhealthy soil, environment, or treatment.

i just love food and i want to eat well. i know i'm a little bit obsessed with this... but i have to admit, i was excited to have had my book signed (personalized to me!) by such a great scholar/journalist in the field!!

more about him and his books/work can be found here.