Suggest Questions for Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan's September 24th lecture at the Kohl Center, "In Defense of Food: The Omnivore's Solution," is free and open to all. We hope you'll attend and invite anyone you know who might be interested.
Due to the scale of the Kohl Center event, the question and answer period will be moderated. Questions should be suggested in writing by September 21st. The moderator will select a representative group of questions and ask them of Michael Pollan at the event.
If you would like to suggest a question, please post it as a comment to this blog post. Please also consider including some very brief information about yourself.
Please note: Details of the 9/25 panel, now at the Wisconsin Union Theater, are here
The call for questions is now closed. Thanks to all for a great mix of topics and perspectives! You can read them below by clicking on "Comments."
Sarah McDaniel
Go Big Read
gobigread@library.wisc.edu
Due to the scale of the Kohl Center event, the question and answer period will be moderated. Questions should be suggested in writing by September 21st. The moderator will select a representative group of questions and ask them of Michael Pollan at the event.
If you would like to suggest a question, please post it as a comment to this blog post. Please also consider including some very brief information about yourself.
Please note: Details of the 9/25 panel, now at the Wisconsin Union Theater, are here
The call for questions is now closed. Thanks to all for a great mix of topics and perspectives! You can read them below by clicking on "Comments."
Sarah McDaniel
Go Big Read
gobigread@library.wisc.edu
Labels: questions Pollan
Comments posted to the Go Big Read blog are moderated. We reserve the right to edit or delete comments that include any of the following:
63 Comments:
My name is Kristi Wood. I am a grad student in the UW-Madison's part-time Social Work program. I found your book to be full of information that I try to adhere to as I choose what to eat every day. The question that I have is this: in an area such as Madison, where we are fortunate to have an abundance of wonderful organic produce to choose from, not everyone can afford to eat organic all of the time. What are some suggestions you have to overcome this obstacle? If we need to limit our plant intake because of budgetary constraints,are there certain types of plants you place priority on?
Thank you.
My name is Aneidys Reyes. I have been a vegan for about three years now and have come across many opinions concerning how healthy it is, how sustainable it is and over-all whether it is "wrong" or "right." I was just hoping you could share some of your own opinions concerning vegan/vegetarian lifestyles. Thank you.
A.G here, an undergrad in CALS. In your book you mentioned the phrase "Eat Food, Not too much, mostly plants" and also made connections to a forage diet, and having made that connection would like to ask you if you think foraging for food is a skill everyone should at least try to learn or posses.
CALS grad here... Pollan is highly critical of synthetic fertilizers, yet to replace those nutrients, Nobel Prize winning Professor Norman Borlaug (recently deceased) estimates that it would take the manure of an additional 5 billion cows. My question, to all of you is how do you propose we replace the essential fertilizers currently used and how does that affect the carbon footprint.
My name is Benjamin Klein, I am a grad student in the mass communication/journalism field. I was wondering if you could talk more about beverages. Specifically if there are any true health differences in tap/personally filtered waters opposed to bottled (excluding obvious environmental effects). And also your thoughts on the 100% pure juices in the market and what beverages are best to accompany meals in general?
I recently enjoyed watching the PBS premier of "Botany of Desire" at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Do you have plans in the works for future documentaries based on your other books or perhaps on PolyFace Farms? Andrea Jones, Eater of Food!
Carl, graduate, CALS. Mr. Pollan's work is an appeal to the essence of food and, in the larger sense, the essence of eating (i.e. sitting together at the dinner table, slowing down, etc.). As a metric for judging which foods to buy, Pollan suggests "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." My question is what does Mr. Pollan think of the fact that great-grandmother was a housewife who spent countless days preparing meals or preserving foods ... can we (should we) and how do we get back to a "slower" meal without putting unnecessary time / labor burdens on women? Maybe the larger question is how do we slow down in the current American cultural context of speed, efficiency, and production?
My name is Kelly Schuder, I am a sophomore majoring in Psychology. I feel that you've written a great book on our eating habits, mostly centered around our land-based agricultural practices, but have you ever considered exploring how we eat in regards to the sea? So many cultures and traditions are based around fishing, which seems to be collapsing by our practices. The complete collapse of the world fisheries by 2024 isn't something that's being talked about much, but I wonder if you would be interested in exploring how we "harvest" food from the other 71% of the Earth?
Dear Michael
Would you say something about what nutrition science, not nutritionism,HAS achieved? If 'not much', what do you speculate we might discover to help science support food selection (while understanding that more than just health is important)?
My name is Jessica Steig, I am a junior majoring in Elementary Education. This fall I am taking a Botany class in which we are reading Pollan's "In Defense of Food". As I continue reading, I notice there are many "fake" foods mentioned. I am curious to learn the types of food besides simply plants that ARE healthy and good for us, according to Pollan. What does Pollan's diet consist of?
Grad student here. Wisconsin has been known to be a dairy state with numerous German influence. I feel that Wisconsin heavily depends on the production of cheese, ice cream, sausages, and other products to sustain the state's economy. Since the state does not produce as many vegetables and fruits as California and other foreign countries, how can the state promote individuals to eat healthily and to maintain its economy at the same time?
I have heard that plants are not a good source of proteins, and we need proteins to function. Many people thought of seafood as an alternative, which is healthier with more omega3. Instead of being vegetarian, should we not simply try to observe the food pyramid?
One of the major reasons food scientists have been working in laboratories is to increase the yield of the product. This has become ever-more important as the population of the world has been growing tremendously. I was wondering how agriculture is to support all of these new mouths if we cannot produce enough food to feed them? Are Americans just supposed to sit here and do nothing to increase production while people in this world starve? I can understand questioning how people eat and making them understand what is happening with their food, but making farmers look like the bad guy is just wrong, go after the companies that are pushing the market, what the farmers produce, and what we ultimately eat. It is not the farmer's fault it is the big coorporations that run the food system. Farmers are just trying to make a living just as much as everyone else.
My name is Jordan Simonson and I am in a Psychology 202 class. In this class we are discussing how stress can lead us to cope with our problems in a variety of ways. One of these ways is by eating, typically sweets and stuff that is bad for you. I was wondering if you think the best way to curb obesity in America is then to use methods of stress reduction or eating better or both?
My name is Mike and I have produced pork for over 50 years. My question is: Modern pork production practices have virtually eliminated the trichinae issue in pork, yet recent studies (story published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease by James E McWilliams) have found trichinae in free range pork and higher levels of salmonella when compared to pork raised using modern production practices. How can you be sure the way our grandparents raised food or free range produced food, would meet today's rigid food safety standards?
If farmers and consumers did what you suggest in your book. How could a Wisconsin farm couple make an actual living (health insurance, college tuition, etc.) on their farm without off-farm income, and how could a low-to-medium class Madison couple afford to feed a family of four? -- Casey Langan, Madison.
Our nations universities are significant actors in reinforcing a reductionist and fragmented approach to knowledge and public policy. You are a member of a University faculty. Do you have ideas about how our universities might change to take a more wholistic approach to food systems, health, our economy and other broad challenges we face?
Gerry Campbell, Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin-Madison/Extension
Dear Michael,
My name is Adam and I am a sophmore. We are currently reading your book "In Defense of Food" for my Botany/Ecology 260 class. I currently live in the UW Residence Halls, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions about healthy eating around campus seeing as our residence halls all have cafeterias and take-out places that are, although convenient, not too healthy for our eating habits. Students in the residence halls don't have many other choices as far as diversity in their diet and often find themselves eating processed cafeteria foods every day in these residence hall cafeterias. What do you suggest is a good moderation point or alternative approach?
I was wondering what really influenced you to write this book. Are you personally affected by the way Americans eat. Another words, does someone close to you have diabetes or other health problems caused by their eating habits.
In 1997, I was told by Doctors' that I would not be alive today because of having a Oligodendroglioma, which is Brain Cancer (left side). I was able to go to a Doctor in Michigan, His name is Dr. Robert Thomas and a Nutritionist, her name is Paula DuVall, to tell me that I have a chance to live, in 1997. I was on a vegan lifestyle for 8.5 years and in 2006, when I went to Madison(St Mary's)Hospital, Dr Carter told me to go on Tomotherapy, which I decided I wouldn't. I looked into a hospital, on the internet, to help get this thing out of me. I found one in Houston, TX (MD Anderson), 2006. But I found out by eating oil, salt, chicken and turkey, I found out that was not good for me, even if I had all my cancer removed, because oil still lingers in my brain and therefore it shows up 3 years later. This year (2009) I had a grand mal seizure, which the doctors' want me to have chemo, since I decided I wouldn't I went to my nutritionist and she told me to get anything out of my system-do a colonic-eat all fruits and veggies, grains and nuts and get rid of that seizure causing thing, so I'm back of fruits, veggies, grains and nuts. So in my 12.5 years of doing this Vegan is the best, without chemo or radiation!! Lots of juicing, lots of raw foods etc. I am trying to get my book wrote, but of course it's far from being done. How did you get to write your book? thanks
In your book you recommend that people spend more time and money on their eating in order to get on track with a healthier eating regimen. To what extent do you think that the change in eating habits are the result of industry choices, and how much of an industry's choices are a result of the changing needs of a society?
Mr. Pollan, thank you for illuminating the current state of food confusion in a book that is both informative and fun to read! I have a simple question: if you knew nothing of all the food hullabaloo, what would be your favorite food? Additionally, having learned all that you have, what is your current favorite food?
Give us an example daily menu for the Pollan family. What do you eat?
In your book "In Defense of Food", you wrote that there are good environmental reasons to eliminate meat from one's diet. In the footnote that expained this, you wrote briefly about wasted water, and cited a United Nations study that states that livestock generates more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry(!). Two related questions:
1) Roughly how much water does it take to produce a pound of protein from meat vs. plants? Ballpark figures are fine.
2) I've heard it's mostly cattle (dairy and beef) that produce these greenhouse gases... are grass-fed cattle any better, and if so, by how much?
Thanks!
P.S. I'd love to read a whole book about how to eat that's best for people AND the planet (hint, hint).
Besides voting with our forks, what can we do to force food companies to LABEL all imitation food-like substances, additives/preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, and genetically modified organisms? How do we even begin to limit the power of big business lobbies (from chemical, biotech, and food companies)? - Not everyone will have the literacy skills or resources to read Pollan's books and access only local, sustainably grown, whole food.
Hi, Michael. I am a grad student in journalism.
What are your thoughts on the Obama administration's push towards ecologically and socially responsible food? Can programs like the USDA's "Know your farmer, know your food" initiative succeed even as the government continues to support big, industrial agriculture?
Mr. Pollan, I am a senior at UW-Madison and I grew up in a very small farming community. My grandparents on both sides farmed, and I ate many delicious home-cooked meals on grandma's table. I also learned about food production there. My grandparents dedicated over 40 years of their lives to farming. Grandma still talks about how every year they worked hard to learn about new ways to better feed the cows (GMO crops) and keep them healthy (antibiotics). They embraced technology to create a more wholesome product. Grandma said she fears the idea of going back to the "old days" of farming (a way she still remembers clearly) because she knows how much work it took to get where we are today and how much better our food is because of that toil. What would you say to justify your reasoning to people who have spent a lifetime providing wholesome food to their neighbors, community and state? --Andrea Bloom
Dylan Wilbur, Communication Arts Major in my 4th year. I'm quite interested in hearing more about the pleasure and joy that can be found in eating. I find that the entirety of our problems with food in America is encapsulated in how our view of chocolate cake differs from the French. What steps do you think can be taken to reconnect the American people with their palate? How can we convince ourselves that food is a "celebration" we are lucky enough to experience 3 (if not more) times a day?
My name is Ellen Carlson, and I work for an area non-profit that funs a Food Pantry. There is a lot of discussion in the food pantry community about the best and cheapest way to keep people from going hungry. We know that nutrition, whole foods, and access to non-processed foods is the best way to stay healthy, but often the hardest to keep in stock, and the most expensive to store at a Food Pantry. Do you have any thoughts on we can make the dream of eating well a reality for so many families in poverty?
What kind of career or educational path do you envision for those of us interested in transforming our food system? How can we affect food policy?
Michael,
I am a 50 year old who in the past 2 years has decided to change my diet and exercise habits as I enter my next "phase" of life. I am trying to adopt many of the prinicipals you list and feel I have more energy and probably look better than I did when I was in my 20's and 30's. My question is this, is it too late? Will these changes have a positive impact and help me avoid the diseases of the "western diet"? Thanks! Deb
While I found the information you present in both "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" fascinating, and each certainly provided fodder for my own beliefs, I also recognize I am already a "part of the choir," so to speak. And I perceive that many of your readers are the same. How do you speak to those that aren't yet "converted"? In other words, what do you think is an effective way to reach people who are reluctant or adverse to the ideas you are proposing?
Reading your book prompted me to change the way I eat. Now I only eat meat that is local and organic, as well as local produce, but I have not been able to wean myself off of coffee. Madison, obviously, does not have the climate to farm coffee beans. I feel bad about drinking coffee because of the amount of miles is takes to to be imported, but I'm addicted. The majority of the coffee I drink is fair trade. Do you think fair trade very sustainable? What is your take on it?
Mr. Pollan, you assail the modern food system for its use of chemicals, fertilizers, technology, and even the use of fossil fuels. My question is, "Can you paint for me your ideal agricultural utopia, that will feed the world's population?"
Al Schultz, UW Grad
I'm a second year graduate student in the sciences who grew up in a small town in Alaska. Although I really did enjoy many aspects of your book, I was wondering if you had any suggestions on ways that people living in areas that aren't ideal to farm or grow vegetables in can adapt their eating habits. Most of the native Alaskan cultures have left, or are moving away from their subsistence life styles, and filling the nutritional void with processed and shelf-stable foods (because they keep well as they are transported the 2000 miles to Alaska). Vegetables that are available are very expensive, and often not fresh. What do you think is the ideal change to move people away from processed foods? Eating vegetables shipped from thousands of miles away? Or depending heavily on the land?
Tying in with the beverage question above, while your book talked about alcohol, what about caffeine? Obviously energy drinks and concentrated caffeine products would be cut out by the great-grandmother rule, but do you have any ideas about how caffeinated coffee and tea should be integrated into a healthy diet, and whether like alcohol they might interact with other foods?
Why do you suppose there isn't a larger market for fresh whole foods instead of overly processed ones? It seems that there is a profit to be made with fresh, whole foods. It seems counter intuitive that a loaf of bread with 31 ingredients is cheaper to make than a loaf with three or four ingredients. Can you explain to me how it's still cost effective to ADD so many things to something that should be so simple and fairly inexpensive as a loaf of bread?
Thank you, Carol Warden UW grad student
I am a UW alumna with a farm background. Thanks to the UW for providing such a forum for this critical issue. Our national food system and the policies that shape it have evolved slowly over the last 70 years or so. Many of our national policies (such as commodity programs)were put in place around the time of the Great Depression, to address farm income disparities. Technological advances and predatory pricing in agriculture - beef, chicken, even vegetables - has led to concentration in agriculture unforeseen by those early policy-makers.
There is no doubt in my mind that the system is broken and needs a major overhaul, especially when it comes to federal investment in both agriculture and health. As with any complex system though, one starts messing with it and the system can respond in highly chaotic ways.
It is increasingly clear why we must change the system. Given that we are talking food, though, wouldn't it be prudent to invest in systems modeling to reduce the risk of system collapse and point a way forward? Are there any farmers, citizens, economists and ecologists working on this? If we were to dismantle commodity farm supports, what would the timeline be? How do we take the first few steps? Who are the political leaders? Where is the plan?
My name is Karl Haro von Mogel, I am a plant genetics graduate student, and I am interested in what you have said about plant genetic engineering through the years. In 2001, you called Golden Rice "the world's first purely rhetorical technology." In a 2004 interview with the Sierra Club, you said ?I don't think in ten years we'll be talking about GMOs. I can easily see the industry withering away.? But this year, I understand that you are now promoting ?Open Source? genetic engineering. Is this a sign that your opinion of the usefulness and future of this technology is now changing?
In Dane County (which includes Madison), 47 percent of the elementary students receive subsidized lunches at school. What kind of eating, shopping, and other advice would you give these families?
Have you/do you plan to visit any farms while here in Wisconsin?
How can I help my conservative/republican parents (who are fans of Fox News) understand that a change toward eating locally-grown organic whole foods is necessary. They think the organic movement is a scam. I highly doubt they would read your books or accept any scientific data that comes from what they call "liberal brainwashing universities." How can I get through to them???
As a scientist trained in the biochemistry department at this university, where the irradiation process for production of vitamin D led to the elimination of rickets, and where niacin was first isolated, leading to the elimination of pellagra, I am naturally somewhat defensive of "reductionist" science, as I know it has saved many lives and improved the health of many more. In your opinion, how should nutritional and biochemical scientists focus their CURRENT efforts to improve nutrition?
When you describe nutritionism as an ideology and not a science, and then later go on to say that these nutrients are 'invisible' and 'mysterious' what exactly are you implying by this, that in fact these nutrients don't really exist? You continue by saying 'the visible world is not the one that really matters' but is that in fact the principle behind nutritionism? Couldn't it also be explained as the science not ideology of what we are actually putting in our bodies, and as the microscopic level of what we eat at the macroscopic level?
Biology professor here. Having seen much pesticide abuse by growers trying to control plant virus diseases, I wonder if you'd comment on the use of virus-immune GMO crops. I'm no big-ag enthusiast, but this seems like an example of good GMO technology. It solves a problem more effectively and with less environmental impact than traditional methods. But such crops don't meet organic standards and many real-food purists would spurn them. Do you agree that *all* GMO crops should be banned from organic farming?
I am a senior UW student who grew up on my family's mid-sized dairy farm and am quite familiar with production agriculture. How can organic crop production be sustainable when soil losses due to erosion can be as much as 10 times greater than acceptable levels? Not to mention the extra fossil fuels used (and carbon dioxide given off) by the extra passes the farmer must make through the field since tillage is one of the only means of weed control. While I agree that we need to be cautious when using pesticides, they can be a valuable tool in growing safe and quality crops.
My name is Ariela and I am studying to become a Registered Dietician. In you book, you argue that people should eat a more diverse diet, which I agree with. But I believe you contradict yourself when you also say that people should eat a "traditional diet." The traditional Mexican and Inuit diets you laud, for example, are very limited. My question is, which do you think is more important - that people eat diets that are "traditional" or that they eat diets that are Diverse?
What is your opinion on why people are becoming more physically resistant to weight loss?
Nick Utphall, local Lutheran pastor:
"In Defense of Food" seemed to me largely to focus on what happens inside my body and very tangentially or secondarily on what that does to the global environment around me. (Soil life was a notable exception.) What do you say about how to balance health as an individual with that necessary component of health that is our planet? (The answer may be as simple as "Read 'Omnivore's Dilemma.'")
I teach a first-year course in the College of Engineering. This is a question from some of my students: What is the role of the food industry -- including companies such as Kraft Foods and General Mills -- in a food system that supports healthy eating rather than the Western diet?
As a scientist trained in the biochemistry department at this university, where the irradiation process for production of vitamin D led to the elimination of rickets, and where niacin was first isolated, leading to the elimination of pellagra, I am naturally somewhat defensive of "reductionist" science, as I know it has saved many lives and improved the health of many more. In your opinion, how should nutritional and biochemical scientists focus their CURRENT efforts to improve nutrition?
I found interesting points in your book, In Defense of Food, that have made me examine what I eat. On page 93, you cite ?the chances that a sixty- or seventy-year-old suffers from cancer or type 2 diabetes are far greater today than they were a century ago." I began to wonder if the reported reason for death in 1900 was not as reliable as today. Possibly, the knowledge and capability to diagnose these diseases was not as advanced as today, which can skew this comparison. Is this a legitimate issue to consider?
What are the proven attributes of organic production that make it better than conventional agriculture? Must organic production be "non industrial" to meet Mr. Pollan's criteria?
Pollan dismisses many food scientists and nutritionism. Where's the same rigor and scrutiny being applied to organic? Who or what says that is better and why should we trust them? Could it be that organic is the next Fad based on some theory that is ultimately disproven?
My name is Kayla Blado and I am a sophomore. You stress in "Omnivore's Dilemma" that it is important to eat locally. In the summer, I eat produce from my garden and shop at Farmers' Markets and freeze or can what I'm able to. The winters in Wisconsin aren't conducive to gardening or fresh produce. What is the healthiest and most sustainable way to eat in the winter?
Earlier this month the world remembered the life and legacy of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, "The Man Who Fed The World". Dr. Borlaug stated in 2000: "I now say the world has the technology available - or research in the pipeline to feed, on a sustainable basis, 10 billion people. The pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be able to use this technology?" Dr. Borlaug went on to warned the world of the environmental ideologues and "fashionable elitist" who have never gone hungry. Is not Michael Pollan's ideology "In Defense of Food" and his earlier books overly simplistic if not dangerous?
Without using available and new technologies of tomorrow, how does Michael Pollan suggest we feed an additional 80 million people a year? Do we not have a moral obligation to use our talents and technologies, as Dr. Borlaug did, to feed the world?
Richard Gorder, dairy farmer, Vice President WFBF.
I was very sad to see that #2 things to do advises not to eat out. As a small business owner in a struggling economy, we are still doing everything we can to support our local farmers by buying fresh produce and baked goods from our farmers? market, as well as supporting Grateful Growers (a local farm) for our pork products.We are struggling to do this and to still keep our prices within a decent range.Please don?t try and put small restaurants out of business in an effort to save the farmers. Believe me, on a Saturday morning, there are many chefs trolling the market and buying in quantity from the local farmers.
Your Suggestion will be appreciated.
Hi...
This is Martine Argent. I am a plant genetics graduate student. I have just gone the vegan way. I am looking forward to people like me on their opinions on sustenance and benefits of 100% vegan way.
What do you think is the most common diet for person who has untreated cancer? Or maybe ideal food for them?
Really enjoyed the read, thanks. I'm still working on losing weight, do you think I should take a look at any supplements as well?
Hi,
It is not really proven if being vegan is right or wrong. But I think these discussions are exteremely important as it creates a kind of demand in people to reconsider what they eat. I am a European and overweight is a serious problem here (and other problems that are due to wrong eating habits). But I have to say - and please do believe me that I do not want to hurt anyone - that I was completely shocked when I saw it how many people are suffering from being extremely overweight in the US.
I read your book and I would not hesitate to say it is a nice book. However as we live in a globalization era that majority of the foods are being served in a "fast food" manners and a lot of time it is just impossible to find a healthy foods around my workplace. any solution to that?
Can you paint for me your ideal agricultural utopia, that will feed the world's population?
My daughter is a vegan. She does well with it, but she's always wanting to eat at rabbit friendly restaurants - not so good for the meat-eaters in the family.
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