The Future Of Health Care Is Fighting The Farm Lobby

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times, Michael Pollan portends the entangled futures of health care, obesity, and insurance companies. Just as the insurance companies joined governmental efforts to rally against smoking, Pollan foresees insurance companies tackling obesity. This is necessarily after upcoming health care reforms.
Even the weaker versions of reform [...]

September 11, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics  No Comments

Omnivore’s Dilemma Gets Booted And Then Re-Instituted

Food activists and Pollan fans alike were stunned to hear that Washington State University (WSU) had cut the author’s famous Omnivore’s Dilemma from its freshmen “common reading” program. They called foul play and wondered, rather bluntly in many cases, whether the cancellation was due to the school’s (big) agricultural endowments.
WSU officials site budgetary issues, [...]

May 29, 2009  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics  No Comments

Michael Pollan, Condensed – An Interview with Mother Jones Magazine

Michael Pollan had a great interview with the Mother Jones magazine. In it, he concisely portrays what are the quintessential points of contemporary food activism. If haven’t had time to pick up his books In Defense of Food or The Omnivore’s Dilemma, read this short article. I especially like his rational, pragmatic [...]

March 26, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics  No Comments

Grass-Fed Beef Have Reduced E. coli Presence

The fact that grass-fed beef helps reduce the incidence of extremely injurious E. coli is actually really old news.  Scientists have known since 1998 that cattle fed on grass, even if just for the last few days before slaughter, have severely reduce the rates of E. coli contamination.  Michael Pollan details the causal linkage between [...]

March 2, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics, Science & Technology  No Comments

True Cost of Beef Flowchart

Reading Omnivore’s Dilemma, one realizes that something is missing. Something that could tie many of Pollan’s points into something greater…Something one could understand at a glance…What the book needs is pictures!  More specifically: flowcharts!  Pollan discusses the hidden costs of cheap beef creation via factory farming.  While the paragraphs he devotes to the topic [...]

February 26, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Science & Technology  6 Comments

A Garden On The White House Lawn, Definitely A Shovel-Ready Program

At a time when every carbon footprint is being measured and accounted for, the White House Administration need only look out the many windows of their mansion to see their own big contribution to global warming.  Encompassing about 18 acres, the White House grounds are manicured with more precision than the most posh country club [...]

February 2, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Fun Food Facts, Politics  2 Comments

Fat from the Flawed Farm Bill…Some Get Checks, Most Get Bigger Waistlines

Walk into the average grocery store and you will find that carrots and broccoli are more expensive per calorie than soda or Twinkies. Have you ever stopped to wonder why this is? How is that carrots with just washing, bagging, and no advertisements are more expensive than the Twinkie’s 39 complex, hard to pronounce ingredients [...]

November 25, 2008  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Health, Politics  2 Comments

Michael Pollan favored by Foodies/Environmentalists for Agriculture Secretary

I’m not really sure if I would want Michael Pollan to be the Agriculture Secretary, but I signed the petition for it anyway. There is no gaurantee that he would be more influential as a figurehead. Maybe we don’t know how influential an Agriculture Secretary could be because we have never had one that fights [...]

November 18, 2008  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Politics  No Comments