The first step towards solving the omnivore's dilemma is knowledge: eating with full consciousness. When that happens, I have a lot of confidence that people will make good choices.
Michael PollanCaliforniaโs Proposition 37, which would require that genetically modified (G.M.) foods carry a label, has the potential to do just that - to change the politics of food not just in California but nationally too.
Michael PollanOrganic Oreos are not a health food. When Coca-Cola begins selling organic Coke, as it surely will, the company will have struck a blow for the environment perhaps, but not for our health. Most consumers automatically assume that the word "organic" is synomymous with health, but it makes no difference to your insulin metabolism if the high-fructose corn syrup in your soda is organic.
Michael PollanBut carbon 13 [the carbon from corn] doesn't lie, and researchers who have compared the isotopes in the flesh or hair of Americans to those in the same tissues of Mexicans report that it is now we in the North who are the true people of corn.... Compared to us, Mexicans today consume a far more varied carbon diet: the animals they eat still eat grass (until recently, Mexicans regarded feeding corn to livestock as a sacrilege); much of their protein comes from legumes; and they still sweeten their beverages with cane sugar. So that's us: processed corn, walking.
Michael PollanCorn is the hero of its own story, and though we humans played a crucial supporting role in its rise to world domination, it would be wrong to suggest we have been calling the shots, or acting always in our own best interests. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that corn has succeeded in domesticating us.
Michael Pollan