"michael pollan" news and stories

Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma," has a new book out which is basically a guide to his food philosophy. Called "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual," it contains 64 rules for eating wisely.

Slashfood: How did you come about the idea for this book?
MP: I got the idea from a couple of doctors after "In Defense of Food" came out. They were saying they would love to have a pamphlet of very simple, memorable rules to help out patients. We don't have time to give them a big nutritional lecture, and they don't need to know all the science behind it but they do need some guidance. People are very confused about what to eat. I thought that kind of chimed with the work I was doing, leading to the conclusion that nutrition was a lot simpler than people have been led to believe both by the media, the government, the food industry and this whole blizzard of health claims out there and this controversy over fats and carbs was really obscuring some pretty simple truths. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." So the rules help people navigate the supermarket, navigate the restaurant menu and navigate their own kitchens.

Read the rest of our interview and get a sneak peek into Michael Pollan's new book, "Food Rules."

With celebrities having already collected Senate seats and governorships, Commissioner of Agriculture may emerge as the next hot office for wannabe politicos.

The trend is taking off in Texas, where satirist and sometime country music star Kinky Friedman -- fresh off a bruising gubernatorial campaign, which even his buddy Willie Nelson's fundraisers couldn't salvage -- has thrown his 10-gallon hat in the ring. Friedman has proposed putting more Texas-grown foods on school lunch lines, ramping up alternative-fuel programs and building on a farmer's market tradition established decades ago by former commissioner Jim Hightower.

"The last commissioner I really admired was Jim Hightower," Friedman says. "When he did farmer's markets, they said people would never buy from subsistence farmers. Now they're the hottest thing going."

Vibrant Swiss chard from the Torrance farmers' market. Photo: clayirving, Flickr.

In the "treacherous food landscape" of today's supermarkets, noted New York Times contributor and author Michael Pollan has culled a collection of "Rules to Eat By" to help readers navigate "through the minefields of the modern-food marketplace or restaurant menu."

He requested suggestions from New York Times readers in March as research for an upcoming book and received more than 2,500 in just a few days. With food policies ranging from the innate ("Don't eat egg salad from a vending machine"), to quirky ("Don't yuck someone's yum"), to moral ("Don't eat anything you aren't willing to kill yourself"), Pollan's 20 favorites provide a helpful guide to eating right.

As food takes a longer and longer path -- and transformation -- from its origins, and the food industry gains increasing influence over what is deemed "nutritious" according to federal standards, eating right has become more and more abstruse. With the constant rise of misguided or unsound food principles -- Paula Deen categorizing her strawberry cake as "fruit" on "The View," KFC's Double Down sandwich swapping its bun for two servings of fried chicken, a markedly "Supersized" culture -- Pollan stresses the importance of the elementary practice of trusting culture, and following our leaders -- mothers and fathers and friends -- rather than increasingly convoluted federal nutrition guidelines when making appropriate food choices.

Weary of the "era of dazzling food science, supersize portions and widespread dietary confusion," Pollan published "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," took the James Beard Award for best food writing and is currently the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley.

Bottles of vinegar. Photo: junmon603, Flickr.

• Sometimes seasoning to taste shouldn't be a spray of salt, but rather a splash of vinegar.
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• Entertaining at home doesn't need to be an expensive affair or scattered potluck. Some hosts are having fun with team cooking.
• Three pros share party-hosting tips like pasta experimentation and budget cuts of meat.
• Michael Pollan is becoming a phenomenon?
• The Tribune's Cookie Contest will land one lucky baker $200 at Williams-Sonoma.
• Chicago food and drink events.
• Recipes: Mini Currant Scones, Orzo and Brown Rice Pilaf, Cherry Tomato-Walnut Pizza.

Sunday afternoon, midwesterners packed a small independent movie theater in Kansas City, Mo., for a screening of the new documentary "Fresh," which takes a close and at times disturbing look at factory farming in the United States. Along with its director, Ana Sofia Joanes, "Fresh" (click the trailer above) is wending its way across the country in the hopes, Joanes said at a panel discussion between two sold-out screenings, of "changing the misconception that we need the industrial food system." This isn't the first new anti-Big Farming flick to hit the silver screen, so we're calling a trend.

"Fresh" follows the lives of four farm families, including a Missouri hog farmer who exterminated his industrial stock after being gored by one of his hogs and doctors found that he was resistant to most antibiotics. Michael Pollan and John E. Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, make cameos as talking heads.

The real star, however, may be the swoon-worthy (if you like the rugged type) sustainable Virginia farmer Joel Salatin, who has the vocabulary of a professor and no shame about embracing "the chickenness" of his hens when greeting them with a "Good morning, girls!" each day.