We have food deserts in our cities. We know that the distance you live from a supplier of fresh produce is one of the best predictors of your health. And in the inner city, people don't have grocery stores. They have to get on a bus and take a long ride to get to a source of fresh produce.
Michael PollanHe showed the words โchocolate cakeโ to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. โGuiltโ was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: โcelebration.
Michael PollanThe longer I've looked at these questions, of the American diet and the public health crisis that we face because of that diet, the more I've come to the conclusion that the collapse of cooking is a big part of the problem.
Michael PollanThe issue of snacking is complicated. In principle, "grazing" is probably a good idea. It would even out the insulin spikes and things like that from eating large meals. The problem is it makes it harder for people to control the amount they're eating.
Michael PollanOur ingenuity in feeding ourselves is prodigious, but at various points our technologies come into conflict with nature's ways of doing things, as when we seek to maximize efficiency by planting crops or raising animals in vast mono-cultures. This is something nature never does, always and for good reasons practicing diversity instead. A great many of the health and environmental problems created by our food system owe to our attempts to oversimplify nature's complexities, at both the growing and the eating ends of our food chain.
Michael Pollan