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Posts Tagged ‘Michael Pollan’
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
Sometimes I buy a book and it takes me forever to read the thing. Not because it’s a bad book, but rather because I sometimes just don’t have the time to sit down and read! That’s what happened to me with The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. I bought this book in October 2008 and it took me about a year to get through it.
However, do not interpret that last sentence as a criticism of this book! No, in fact this is one of the best sustainable living/organic food books that I’ve ever read. Pollan is a master at bringing out the larger issues in our food system. In this book, he manages to achieve that success by following the food from its humble beginnings in the field (or on the industrial farm, as it may be) all the way through when we eat it. The book is a really fascinating look at what happens to our meat and produce before it gets to our tables.
But those with queasy stomachs beware. While Pollan doesn’t talk too much about the gore associated with creating the food that we eat, he talks about it enough to allow the reader to infer just what is going on. From chickens getting their throats sliced and drained of their blood to cows being shot directly between the eyes to kill them, this book will tell you about exactly how our ground beef and chicken cutlets come into being before they hit our dinner tables.
But it’s not all dying animals and blood. In fact, Pollan spends a great deal of time talking about the industrial food system and how we’ve changed the base of our diets from a variety of original sources hundreds of years ago (and even decades ago) to a base of corn. Yes, that’s right – corn. Pollan talks about the ways in which corn is broken down into a whole collection of different components and how those components are used to construct any number of new products. One of the facts that I read in this book that has stuck with me is how we now feed our livestock a corn-based diet at industrial farms and how that diet has changed the very meat of these animals. It all makes sense though, right? If you change what you feed animals that you intend to eat, then you are essentially changing what you intend to eat. There is some discussion about our change to a corn-based system leading to the increasing obesity epidemic in America, too.
Combining Pollan’s natural wit and his great storytelling ability, this book presents the type of information that our society needs to know about in order to create a mass change in our diets. If you’re interested in the slow food movement, local organic farming, or any sustainable living topic in general, then I think that you’ll enjoy this book. Use the link above to read more reviews from Amazon!
Posted in Book, DVD, Movie, & Media Reviews, Sustainable Living | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Hey, I know that I hoot and holler a lot about our country getting a better, more sustainable food supply. For those of you that are bothered by this, I’m sorry but it’s one of the things that I feel strongly about these days. I really believe that our countrymen have been put in a bad way because of a lousy food supply that is based more on corn than on natural elements. Seriously, take a read of any of Michael Pollan’s books and you’ll understand how incredible this change has been and how it has effected us as a people.
That’s why I joined the Food Democracy mailing list – so I could use whatever voice I have in this world to advocate on behalf of bringing our food system back to basics. Part of that change – and make no mistake about it, this is the change that I voted for – is removing from the government those organizations that have an interest in mass producing quick, low-cost sources of food. With that in mind, this is the latest e-mail that I received from Food Democracy:
Dear Friends,
Speak up to stop Big Ag.
President Obama has found himself with some strange bedfellows lately.
While on the campaign trail in Iowa, Barack Obama boasted, “We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.”1 Despite that promise, it seems that ConAgra’s friends at Monsanto and CropLife are still finding their way into the USDA.
Last month, President Obama nominated two “Big Ag” power brokers–Roger Beachy and Islam Siddiqui–to key agency positions, putting agribusiness executives in charge of our country’s agricultural research and trade policy. Please join us in telling the President that this isn’t the change we voted for. We don’t want Big Ag running the show any more.
Siddiqui’s confirmation hearing is set for next week. Please help us reach our goal of 50,000 signatures to make a real impact.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/65?akid=35.18844.xoo-6g&t=1
Obama’s first agribusiness selection is Roger Beachy, to be head of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Beachy is the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO. It may sound innocuous, but the Danforth Center is essentially the non-profit arm of GMO seed giant Monsanto; Monsanto’s CEO sits on its board, and the company provides considerable funding for the Center’s operations.2
As the head of the USDA’s new research arm, formerly known as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CREES), Beachy is responsible for deciding how U.S. research dollars will be spent in agriculture.3 Translation: more research on biotech, less research on how to scale sustainable and organic agriculture.
Unfortunately, Beachy has already started work at the USDA, but the next nominee—Islam Siddiqui—still must be confirmed by the U.S.Senate. Siddiqui, the Vice President of Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, was recently nominated to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative.4 Amazingly, when Michele Obama planted her “organic” garden on the White House lawn, Siddiqui’s CropLife MidAmerica sent the First Lady a letter saying that it made them “shudder”.5
During his career, Siddiqui spent over 3 years as a pesticide lobbyist, an Undersecretary at the USDA and a VP at CropLife. In defending Siddiqui, the White House has stated that he played a key role in helping establish the country’s first organic standards.6 What they neglect to mention, though, is that those original organic standards would have allowed irradiation, sewage sludge and GMOs to undermine organic integrity! The standards were so watered down that 230,000 people signed a petition for them to be changed, which they eventually were.7
Fortunately, the organic community stopped Siddiqui and his cronies then, and we need your help now to do it again. If Siddiqui’s nomination is allowed to go through, then agribusiness will continue to control the seeds, the science, and the distribution of global food and agriculture.
Please join Food Democracy Now! and a broad coalition of other groups, in calling on President Obama to keep his campaign promise of closing the revolving door between agribusiness and his administration.
Please click here to add your voice.
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/65?akid=35.18844.xoo-6g&t=1
Thanks for standing with us and our coalition partners from across the country, including: The Pesticide Action Network (PAN), National Family Farm Coalition, Food & Water Watch, Farmworker’s Association of Florida, Institute of Agriculture & Trade Policy, Greenpeace and the Center for Food Safety in calling for President Obama to live up to his promises to put people’s interests ahead of special interests
As I’ve said in previous entries on this topic, it takes less than a minute to send a brief message to the White House. Please take some time and, if this issue interests you, send a message to the White House. I’m realistic. I know that changes today won’t effect the food supply tomorrow, but I do think that changes in the food supply will help future generations of my family and our country eat more natural foods and thus be healthier people.
Posted in Sustainable Living | No Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Yesterday, I put up an entry talking about student loan advocacy and how you can help change student loan legislation for the better. Well, today I’m posting some information from an e-mail I received from a different advocacy group where I’m a member of the listserv. This message comes from “Food Democracy Now” where they talk about some of their recent successes. I’m only going to put one of them on here, since I sent a message during this debacle.
Only weeks ago Michael Pollan’s bestselling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma was kicked off campus at Washington State University until you raised your voice “In Defense of Michael Pollan”. In less than 2 hours over a 1,000 citizens had raised their voices through emails, and 150 phone calls were made to WSU’s president’s office defending academic freedom.
Thanks to you – and the generosity of food safety lawyer Bill Marler – all 4,000 incoming freshman at WSU will now have the opportunity to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma and learn how their food is produced.
I’m proud to say that I sent an e-mail to Washington State University’s President to express my displeasure at the university’s removal of this book from the Freshman reading list. My gripe was that some younger people don’t really understand how what they typically eat is not food, per se, but rather a bunch of things that used to be food and are now broken down into various parts and then thrown back together. I’m telling you, when I read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto , I changed my mind on a lot of the food that I was eating. Sure, I had begun eating more organic foods before reading the book, but learning about how the food industry is set up and in bed with the government is definitely an eye-opening discovery for most people.
Anyway, for those concerned about the food that we eat, I suggest heading over to Food Democracy Now and signing their petition. It’s one of those things that will likely be worth it in the long run.
Posted in Sustainable Living | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
President Obama has taken up the mantle on food safety. In his latest radio address to the nation, Obama said, “In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president, but as a parent.” Let’s hope so. In yesterday’s post I included a link to one of my previous book reviews on “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan. In the book, Pollan talks about how the nature of “food” in America has changed to the point where you can go to the store and buy a block of cheese that is actually imitation cheese. In other words – cheese that is not really cheese!
Thirty-five years ago, the F.D.A. did annual inspections of about half of the nation’s food-processing facilities. Last year, the agency inspected just 7,000 of the nearly 150,000 domestic food facilities, and its oversight of foreign plants, which provide a growing share of the nation’s food supply, is even more spotty.
Experts have long debated whether the F.D.A. should increase inspections or rely instead on private auditors and more detailed safety rules. By calling the limited number of government inspections an “unacceptable” public health hazard, Mr. Obama came down squarely on the side of increased government inspections.
These pieces of information – garnered from a recent New York Times article – show just how low America’s food safety standards have become. We’ve gone from inspecting 50% of the nation’s food processing facilities to inspecting just 4.6%. Come on. That’s clearly not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination.
And what do you get from this type of lackadaisical approach to food safety? Well, for one, you get the gigantic peanut recall that the country is now experiencing. The New York Times article also commented that some, “76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die.” That’s no joke. Hey – I was one of the people who got food poisoning over the last year, too.
I hope that President Obama radically alters our current food safety system. If you’re interested in getting better quality food as a government mandate, think about sending your own message to President Obama</a> on this topic.
Posted in Sustainable Living, United States Politics | No Comments »
Saturday, December 13th, 2008
How many times have we heard that the 2008 Presidential election was a historic contest? Probably enough to make you sick, I bet. Well, whether you voted for President-Elect Barack Obama, Senator John McCain, or a third party candidate I urge you to keep the winds of “change” blowing in this country.
This country is being confronted with a severe crisis and we are losing the battle, miserably. No, it’s not the economy and no, it’s not our place in international affairs. Americans are losing a battle in their own homes!
We are losing the battle for food.
New York Times op-ed columnist Nick Kristof wrote an interesting piece the other day on the topic of the next Secretary of Agriculture. In the op-ed, he cites Michael Pollan – author of In Defense of Food -:
“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”
The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.
But let’s be clear. The problem isn’t farmers. It’s the farm lobby — hijacked by industrial operators — and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.
Kristof suggests that Obama rename the Secretary of Agriculture to the Secretary of Food, since it encompasses more Americans. Further, he suggests that we take a second look at what is really being accomplished for the agribusinesses that are bringing in these government subsidies.
I’ve read Pollan’s book and it’s eye-opening. I knew that there was a strong food lobby in Washington, but I had no idea of the extent of their successes. Did you know that at one point, the food companies could not name individually wrapped pieces of cheese “individually wrapped pieces of cheese?” Instead, they had to call them an imitation. There used to be a law against putting out imitation products and calling them anything other than imitations.
It’s shocking to think about how many things are no longer pure food and if this really is a time of change in American government, then why not change America from the bottom up – literally? Head over to FoodDemocracyNow.org to sign an online petition urging President-Elect Obama to choose the next Secretary of Agriculture wisely!
Posted in Sustainable Living, United States Politics | No Comments »
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