Food Heroes Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan on NPR

One of my few stated aspirations in life is to be on NPR. In the last couple of weeks, both of my current food heroes have been NPR talking about the state of our food nation:

Marion Nestle was on KRCW’s Good Food talking about the melamine catastrophe in China. She knows that although the United States has far more advanced food legislation, she is afraid we could be headed down a slippery slope. Why? Echoing some of the conclusions from her book Food Politics, she stressed the need for a governmental body that focuses on food safety alone. In her book, she warns that the contentious government bodies of the USDA and the FDA create a breeding ground for lobbyists and bureaucratic loopholes for food companies. It doesn’t help that top executives from various food industries (cattle, dairy, etc.) are often put in charge of those agencies, making it not so difficult to imagine that some may have priorities other than food safety. Did you know that it is easier to get a toy recalled than a batch of salmonella laced meat (see Fast Food Nation)?

Then, Michael Pollan was on Science Friday discussing his open letter to the incoming president elect, or “Farmer in Chief”. He wants the next president to enact policy that will ‘resolarize’ agriculture (i.e. break our dependence on fossil fuel) and get farmers out of the monoculture rut. Use a rotating crop cycle intermixed with animals grazing and depositing natural fertilizers, Pollan says. He adds that Argentine does so on 8-year cycles and lays claim to the best tasting, grass-fed beef.

To fight against the culture of monocultures Michael Pollan and the rest of us have to fight the Farm Bill subsidies on only five major crops—wheat, corn, soy, rice, and cotton. That, I think, is an oversimplified view of the fight that would need to be undertaken. The very lobbyist groups that keep those subsidies in the Bill will have to be fought against. The industry’s money is going to flow to this fight, and consumer confusion that will surely follow won’t help. Still, I think Pollan is a likeable person who is able to get his message across. I’m glad Pollan appeals to the masses (okay, at least an audience of people that will read books and articles about food). Some people who want to see a change in the way food is produced demand the elimination or severe limitation of meat consumption, which obviously scares a lot people. Pollan, on the other hand, simply argues for more sustainable meat consumption. Pollan asks his readers to lend him his ears instead of demanding their stomachs.

November 3, 2008  Tags: ,   Posted in: Health, Politics

One Response

  1. Your next Farmer-in-Chief—Barack Obama! « Food Bubbles - November 8, 2008

    [...] I had said that Michael Pollan asks for his audiences’ ears rather than their stomachs (Link). Well, it appears that his letter to the next “Farmer-in-Chief” got through to its intended [...]

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