I still haven't read Pollan's book but I'm glad he's out there and having an impact. My apartment is a 10 minute bike ride from my local farmer's market. Since I've moved here I've never eaten so many fresh and local fruits and vegetables. I feel great, and I think I've saved a bit of money from not buying produce at the grocery store. Sometimes I still go to Whole Foods, and I've also noticed that there's a more significant amount of local produce there than before, so good job Mr. Pollan!

"Then there's this idea that food is something you can endlessly fragment: if you find something in a food that's beneficial, you can isolate it, and concentrate it, and put it in a pill."

This is so true, I think it's because Americans are so afraid to eat fresh vegetables and too many companies are eager to take advantage of that and market miracle pills to the public.  The only pill I take is vitamin B12 since I don't eat animal products. Pretty much everything else you can get from fresh produce, grains, legumes, nuts, and in the case of vitamin D, the sun.  

In regards to the defensiveness of farmers, it is true that there are progressive family farmers who do not like the current system, do not like subsidies and wanted REAL reform , but that the dangerous reforms being offered by outside parties would make a broken system even worse, so farm groups were forced to prefer the [still broken] status quo over even worse reform.

I will say that thanks to the awareness raised by the "reformers", we did get a better bill, with more funding for food stamps, specialty crops, minority farmers, farmers markets, etc. And i think they deserve credit for that.  

I have read your posts on Kos and I am really tired of your self-righteous "I know the farmers" shtick. It's getting old. I know you know some farmers that would be hurt if subsidies were abolished but so what? Your constant refrain about your farmer friends knowing best reminds me of the interviews with soldiers in Iraq who are so passionate about how we must stay in Iraq and continue the fight etc... Are we supposed to take their word for it because they are soldiers and we must defer to their wisdom?

Of course not, they like your farmer friends only see a microcosmic representation of the whole. There are many reasons all of the groups you reference (Oxfam, Club for Growth, Environmental Working Group etc) are aiming to kill agricultural subsides and it's not because they don't see something only you can understand. Your myopic allegiance to a few farmers you know has so tainted your views on this issue as to make your points somewhat irrelevant.

I know many farmers who would love to see these subsidies eliminated.

In the future would you please refrain from representing all the "family farmers" There are many progressive family farmers you don't speak for.

Farmers Union

I was interested to see the comment regarding cooking (as opposed to microwaving prepared foods): that most people say that they just don't have the time.  I can concur, if the relatively small sample of my friends is representative of the wider population.

I've always enjoyed cooking, but have gone through vast stretches of my adult life not really cooking at all.  I lived in Boston for many years, in many different apartments, but one had a ridiculously tiny galley kitchen, and the stove/oven had some sort of gas leak we could never get the landlord to fix, so I almost never cooked.  When living in Manhattan it's almost too easy not to cook;  there is a restaurant or cafe for every imaginable taste & cuisine, and living in Manhattan I was out most every night of the week.  Now that I am living in the boonies and I've joined a CSA, I do a lot of cooking. Hands down, I would tell people that if you want to force yourself to get into the habit of cooking, join a CSA.  

Friends often tell me what a wonderful cook I am - I always tell them it is the ingredients, not my skill as a cook.  They lament that they simply have no time for cooking; I tell them to dedicate only one night a week to cooking something from scratch.  At least once a week we make a fritatta, in our biggest skillet, with whatever CSA veggies need using up;  this will net us 8 small meals that can be heated in the microwave in about 1 minute.  The fritatta itself takes about an hour to make;  one hour out of the week.  One less television show (or, you can even cook with the TV on).  

Sadly, so far, I have not converted many friends. One friend of mine, who used to be a member of a CSA, but abandoned it as too much work when she had a baby, has recently re-joined, following, she said, my example.  Since I've had more time, of late, I've been "preserving the harvest;" doing a lot of canning & drying of harvest fruits & veggies.  Since she has more money than time, she brings me extra organic fruit & veggies from her CSA, I transform them into applesauce, or plum preserves, or tomatillo salsa, can them, and give her back a share of the booty. It's been a wonderful way to stay connected, to teach her little girl, who is 3 and a half years old, about cooking, food, and local harvest seasons, and to enjoy the bounty that the Hudson River Valley has to offer.

Another good way to convince friends to dust off their rusty whisks is to throw a dinner party and ask each friend to bring a dish that is homemade (and/or local, or organic, or seasonal, or whatever your particular food "thing" is).  I had a small dinner party a couple of weeks ago that turned out to be one of those fabulous nights; the food, the wine, the weather, the fire on the deck, and most expeically the company was wonderful. One friend brought a chocoalte-caramel torte that was an "experiment" but turned out to be divine.  When another friend asked me what she should bring, I said "use up whatever you have from the CSA this week."  She brought a huge platter of roasted root veggies that were a big hit.  I did much the same, transforming spinach & sorrel into spinach-sorrel risotto cakes, roasting a delicata squash with parsley & red pepper, grilling bush beans alongside organic chicken (marinated in peach salsa that I put up about a month ago) and making an apple pie.

Food is so much more than fuel - the more we remember that, the better off we will be.

Pollan, not Pollen.  ;)

great interview

In his email alerting his readers about this article, Pollan warned us that there is a scary photo. He was right. What's with those carrots? And the lab coat? Photographers get weird ideas, as Dave Barry has been wont to complain.

I'm so excited about about how Pollan has catalyzed a food revolution in America. It's gotten so much easier to talk to folks about these issues. "Here, read this," is so much simpler than giving them the manifesto verbally. Great stuff.

As with so many subsidies in the US, corporations are the ones benefiting.  However, a strong argument can be made for subsidies.  It is absolutely vital (for every nation, not just ours) to be able to feed its own citizens.  The subsidies should go to farms near cities where property prices are so high a farmer can make lots more money by selling to a developer.  Subsidies might also go to the ensuing farmer's markets.

By the way, Does anyone know whether the drive to a farmer's market wipes out (in energy use) the virtue of buying vegies grown close to home?  I estimate going to a farmer's market does not eliminate the need to go to a Supermarket, so it is an extra automobile trip.