Search results: Michael Pollan

My new book with Kerry Trueman is published today: Let’s Ask Marion: What You Need to Know about the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health.

It’s an unusual book for me.

• For one thing, it is small, 4″ x 6,” and under 200 pages of good-size print.
• For another, it’s a Q and A.  Kerry asked the questions (there are 18, 6 each on the politics of personal diets, community food politics, and international food politics).  I answered them in short essays).

The Table of Contents is here.

You can read the Introduction here.

The back cover blurbs:

• “Marion Nestle has emerged as one of the sanest, most knowledgeable, and independent voices in the current debate over the health and safety of the American food system.”––Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals 
• “When it comes to making sense of the unclean politics of national and international food policy, exposing the motives of corporate food giants, and helping us make the right choices about what we eat, Marion Nestle is a fierce and reliable voice of reason, and her new book is approachable, focused, and hopeful.”––Alice Waters, chef, author, food activist, and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant
• “There is no one better to ask than Marion, who is the leading guide in intelligent, unbiased, independent advice on eating, and has been for decades.”––Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything

More information is here

• About the Book
• About the Author
• Reviews
• Related Books

Buying options

• UC Press
• IndieBound
• Bookshop
• Powell’s
• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon

Enjoy!

Three exceptionally thoughtful and interesting pieces by people who have been writing about food and food systems for a long time. 

Jane Ziegelman in the New York Times: America’s Obsession With Cheap Meat

During World War I, the idea that American vitality was tied to a meat-heavy diet dictated how the troops were fed. To give them a fighting edge, tremendous quantities of beef and pork were shipped overseas, enough to provide soldiers with 20 ounces of beef a day or 12 ounces of bacon. The cost was staggering, but the Army refused to trim meat rations…It’s no coincidence that the archetypal American hero, the cowboy, is a cattle herder, or that we claim hamburgers as the quintessential American food. Or that when Mr. Trump welcomed the 2019 football college champions to the White House, he offered them Big Macs and Quarter Pounders. Much of what has defined us as Americans is expressed through our meat consumption. 

Eric Schlosser in The Atlantic:  America’s Slaughterhouses Aren’t Just Killing Animals

By issuing that order [Trump’s Executive Order], Trump helped an industry that has long been a strong supporter of the Republican Party. He reduced the likelihood that meat prices would greatly increase in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election. And he confirmed what critics of the large meatpackers have said for years: Some of these companies care more about profits than the lives of their workers, the well-being of the communities where they operate, and the health of the American people.

Michael Pollan  in the New York Review of Books: The Sickness in Our Food Supply

Slaughterhouses have become hot zones for contagion, with thousands of workers now out sick and dozens of them dying.  This should come as no surprise: social distancing is virtually impossible in a modern meat plant, making it an ideal environment for a virus to spread. In recent years, meatpackers have successfully lobbied regulators to increase line speeds, with the result that workers must stand shoulder to shoulder cutting and deboning animals so quickly that they can’t pause long enough to cover a cough, much less go to the bathroom, without carcasses passing them by. Some chicken plant workers, given no regular bathroom breaks, now wear diapers.  A worker can ask for a break, but the plants are so loud he or she can’t be heard without speaking directly into the ear of a supervisor. Until recently slaughterhouse workers had little or no access to personal protective equipment; many of them were also encouraged to keep working even after exposure to the virus. Add to this the fact that many meat-plant workers are immigrants who live in crowded conditions with little or no access to health care, and you have a population at dangerously high risk of infection.

Nutritionism is a term coined by the Australian sociologist, Gyorgy Scrinis, and popularized by Michael Pollan.  It means reducing the value of a food to its content of specific nutrients.

This General Mills cereal advertisement is a perfect illustration of how nutritionism works.

Here is one of the six examples:

Chocolate Chex has more iron than black beans?

This may be a true statement, but it is misleading.

What General Mills is not saying is:

• Whether  iron is absorbed from Chocolate Chex as efficiently as it is from black beans.
• What nutrients are in black beans that do not appear in Chocolate Chex.
• How much sugar Chocolate Chex provides as compared to black beans.
• Which of these foods is better for your health.

Hence: Nutritionism.

I don’t usually pay attention to what the American Council for Science and Health (ACSH) says or does, mainly because it is a long-standing front group for the food and chemical industries, and it predictably supports the interests of those industries over public health (see US Right to Know’s analysis).

But then I read this from the Center on Media and Democracy: Corporate Front Group, American Council on Science and Health, Smears List of Its Enemies as “Deniers for Hire.”

Smeared by the site are scientists Tyrone Hayes, Stephanie Seneff, and Gilles-Éric Séralini; New York Times reporter Danny Hakim and columnist Mark Bittman; well-known food and science writer Michael Pollan; nutrition and food studies professor Marion Nestle; public interest groups like U.S. Right to Know, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club, the Environmental Working Group, and Union of Concerned Scientists; past and present CMD staff, and many other individuals ACSH does not like.

Clearly, I’m in good company.  But what, exactly, have I—a “Crankster,” apparently—done to deserve this honor?  It seems that I:

• Support organic foods. Yes, I do.  They are far better for the environment.  I explain why I favor organics in my book, What to Eat (2006).
  
• Express concerns about the safety of glyphosate.  Guilty as charged, and I’m not the only one; the International Agency for Cancer Research says glyphosate (Roundup) is likely to be carcinogenic.
• Joined in attacks on Kevin Folta: Sorry—this one baffles me.  I don’t recall ever commenting on Dr. Folta or his work (he’s mentioned on this site once, in a list of documents obtained by the New York Times).  Perhaps ACSH is referring to my concerns about the aggressive tactics of the GMO industry and its supporters, which I wrote about in detail in my book, Safe Food (2003). 
• Express concerns about food chemicals.  I am indeed concerned about these chemicals, especially with respect to increasing evidence that they harm soil, beneficial insects (bees in particular), and, perhaps, humans. 
• Express concerns about the role of the food industry in promoting unhealthful products. Also, guilty as charged. I write carefully referenced books on this topic, particularly Food Politics (2002) and Soda Politics (2015).  
• Express concerns about industry funding of nutrition research. That’s the topic of my most recent, also extensively referenced, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

What can I say?  Read my work and decide for yourself if such concerns are justified.

For review copies, interviews, etc, contact Kelsey Odorczyk at Basic Books: Kelsey.Odorczyk@hbgusa.com

For information about the book, see Basic Books/Hachette,  IndieBound,  Amazon

For reviews and media accounts, scroll down.

Portuguese translation, Elefante Editora, 2019:

Summary

Is chocolate heart-healthy? Does yogurt prevent type 2 diabetes? Do pomegranates help cheat death? News headlines bombard us with such amazing claims. They are reported as science, and have dramatic effects on what we eat.  Yet, as food expert Marion Nestle explains, these studies are more about marketing than science; they are often paid for by the companies and trade associations that sell those foods. Whether it’s a Coca-Cola-backed study hailing light exercise as a calorie neutralizer, claims for beef as a health food, or a report from investigators paid by a blueberry trade group concluding that this fruit prevents erectile dysfunction, every corner of the food industry knows how to turn conflicted research into big profit. As Nestle argues, it’s time to put public health first. Written with unmatched rigor and insight, Unsavory Truth reveals how the food industry manipulates nutrition science—and suggests what we can do about it.

Blurbs

“What happens when one of the country’s great nutrition investigators follows the money in food and science? You get this riveting, provocatively-written book, which deftly explores how the processed food industry has deepened our dependence on its products by sponsoring and manipulating food research for decades. This book should be read by anyone who has been seduced by the words, ‘New study shows…’—which is all of us.”  —Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat

“Marion Nestle is a tireless warrior for public health, and her meticulous research and irrefutable arguments are desperately needed right now. This book, as frightening as it is, compels us to discover where true health begins: nutrition starts in the ground, with real food that is sustainably grown, eaten in season, and alive.”  —Alice Waters, founder, owner, and executive chef of Chez Panisse

 “In clear, concise language, Marion Nestle details the many ways our ideas about what to eat are being manipulated by Big Food.  If you want to make better choices, read this book.”  —Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet Magazine

 “Marion Nestle is a national treasure.  She has the courage to take on multinational corporations and the wisdom to separate the facts from the spin.  If you care about our food system and the health of your family, Unsavory Truth is essential reading.”  —Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

“Marion Nestle has been a guiding light for sanity, credibility, and justice in food and nutrition for decades; she stands alone in her field. In Unsavory Truth, she exposes the awful deceptions practiced on eaters by manipulative food companies using ‘scientific research’ try to make themselves look good.”  —Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything

 “Marion Nestle is a truth-teller in a world awash with nutrition lies of one kind and another. In this scintillating and eye-opening book, Nestle reveals how much of our confusion about food in modern times has been spread by the food industry itself, which passes off marketing as science and funds ‘research’ designed to show that its products are harmless. Unsavory Truth is essential reading for anyone in search of hard facts about what to eat.”  —Bee Wilson, author of First Bite and Consider the Fork

Reviews and media

2021

July 7   SPINS: What We’re Reading

2019

June 6  Review in American Journal of Public Health 2019;109(7):952-953.

Mar 11  Interview with VegSource with Jeff Nelson

Mar 5  TVO (Canada) The Agenda with Steve Paikin: Battling bias in nutrition research.  Also on YouTube.

Feb 17 Cover story based on Unsavory Truth, San Francisco Chronicle: “The myth-making of food”

Feb 5  KQED San Francisco, Michael Krasny’s Forum

Feb 2  Sarah Boseley reviews Unsavory Truth in The Lancet

Jan/Feb  Nutrition Action Healthletter: Peter Lurie’s editorial

Jan 25  Interview with Holly Friend of LS:N Global

Jan 22  KPFK radio interview , Feminist Magazine with Lynn Harris Ballen

Jan 21  Cookery by the Book, podcast with Suzy Chase

Jan 16  Kara Goldin’s podcast on Unstoppable, Unsavory Truth

2018

Dec 21 The Hagstrom Report’s five best ag books of 2018

Dec 19  Podcast with Max Lugavere, The Genius Life Episode 39 (iTunes), on Unsavory Truth

Dec 17  Radio interview with Rose Aguilar, KALW San Francisco on Unsavory Truth

Dec 14 Podcast review by Narsai David, KCBS

Dec 13  Lecture on Unsavory Truth (video) at Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center

Dec 13  Online interview at PLoS Blog

Dec 12  Podcast with Wooden Teeth

Dec 6  NYU Journalism Kavli Conversation on Science Communication with Paul Greenberg, moderated by Robert Lee Hotz

Dec 3  Interview (podcast) with Bhavani Jaroff of iEat Green

Nov 30  Conor Purcell interview for Undark’s Five Questions

Nov 29 Paul Thacker on Unsavory Truth in the BMJ

Nov 28  Podcast interview with Monica Eng on Unsavory Truth: Chewing episode 55

Nov 26  Lisa Held on Unsavory Truth, Edible Manhattan

Nov 19  Interview with Gabrielle Lipton, Landscape News

Nov 18  Video of interview with Dean Malcolm Clemens, Forum at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco (audio file).

Nov 15  Review by Gavin Wren, Medium.com

Nov 15  Video of keynote at launch of UCSF Food Industry Documents Library (my talk is in Part I: 14:30)

Nov 12  Jennifer Bowden on Unsavory Truth in New Zealand’s The Listener.

Nov 12  Interview with Jesse Mulligan, Radio New Zealand

Nov 10  Review in New Scientist

Nov 7  Podcast interview with The Potter Report

Nov 7  A. Pawlowski.  What are superfoods?  The truth about blueberries, dark chocolate and pomegranate.  Today.

Nov 6  Interview with Paul Thacker.  Tonic.

Nov 4  Lorin Fries.  Who decides what you eat?  (Hint: it’s not only you).  Forbes.

Nov 1  Review in New York Journal of Books

Oct 31 Review from New York Magazine’s The Cut

Oct 31  Interview with Julia Belluz in Vox

Oct 30  Excerpt from Unsavory Truth on Medium.com: “When Big Soda Started Stalking Me”

Oct 30  NPR radio interview with Brian Lehrer

Oct 30 Yoni Freedhoff, Weighty Matters.

Oct 30  Jane Brody.  Confused by nutrition research?  New York Times, Science section.

Oct 29  RT America video interview on Boom Bust about Unsavory Truth.

Oct 28  Hailey Eber. How the food industry fooled us into eating junk.  New York Post, 42-43.

Oct 23  Nestle M.  Superfoods are a marketing ploy (excerpt).  The Atlantic .

Oct 22  Àlex Pérez.  Una verdad desagradable no vende.  ElPiscolabis (Spain).

Oct 18 Nature Magazine (2018;562:334-335): Felicity Lawrence reviews Deborah Blum’s The Poison Squad and Unsavory Truth as “Poisoned Platefuls.”  “Nestle…could make a fair claim to [Harvey] Wiley’s mantle today…The book is a remorseless dissection of the corruption of science by industry.”

Oct 18  Interview with Maggie Tauranac on Unsavory Truth, FoodPrint

Oct 16 Podcast with Danielle Nierenberg on Unsavory Truth and other matters

Oct 2  Science Magazine: “There is indeed something rotten in the state of dietary science, but books like this show us that we consumers also hold a great deal of power.”

Sept 25 La Stampa (Italy): “I cibi di lunga vita sono illusori e troppi sponsor li promuovono.” (The newspaper clip).

Sept 24  Publishers Weekly: ” a groundbreaking look at how food corporations influence nutrition research and public policy.”

Aug 13 Booklist: “This well-documented, accessible venture makes a compelling argument.”

Aug 1  Kirkus: “Nestle proves yet again that she is a unique, valuable voice for engaged food consumers.”

July 17  Phil Lempert’s Lempert Report: Get ready for a new era of transparency (video)

July 9  David Wineberg, “Nutrition: conflict of interest as a career,” Medium.com.

Feb 12 Finnish Public Radio interview about Unsavory Truth (Google Translate, English)

Jan 31 Profile in New Scientist: The Unpalatable Truth about Your Favorite foods

Tweets (Highly Selected)

Michael Pollan, October 30

Ing Fei Chen, October 16:  Undark

Yoni Freedhoff, October 7: his mentions

Basic Books, October 2: Mark Bittman blurb

Basic Books, September 25: Ruth Reichl blurb

Basic Books, September 6: Eric Schlosser blurb

Basic Books, August 28: Alice Waters blurb

Michael Pollan, August 18: “This is a terrific and eye-opening book”

Bee Wilson, August 17: “I feel lucky to have an advance copy …A great piece of investigative writing.”

Basic Books, August 17: Bee Wilson blurb

Adrienne Rose Bitar.  Diet and the Disease of Civilization.  Rutgers University Press, 2017.

I did a blurb for this one:

Bitar’s fascinating thesis is that diet books are ways to understand contemporary social and political movements.  Whether or not you agree with her provocative arguments, they are well worth reading.

I also took some extra notes because the publisher wanted a particularly short blurb.  As you might suspect from my brief comment, I have some quibbles with some of Bitar’s arguments, but the book is interesting, well written, and worth a look.

Bitar deals with four categories of diet books: Paleolithic, faith-based, South Seas paradise, and detox (this last category strangely includes Michael Pollan’s and my work).

Here’s a sample from the chapter I thought strongest, the one on Paleolithic diets.  It refers to classic images of man arising from apes, and then degenerating into obesity.

These images suggest what is much more explicit in the text—that the diet is a story about humanity, about evolution, about civilization and dis-mankind.  The body of the individual dieter is situated in a long, deep history of mankind.  The dieter is biologically indebted to the Paleolithic Era and, in turn, the coming generations will be indebted to him.  Everyday body practices of the individual—eating, sleeping, walking—are elevated to symbols of mankind’s ascent or descent, failures or triumph, in the grand narrative of progress (p. 41).

Marion Nestle: 8 Books on Farming and Food That Deserve More Attention

May 10, 2016  EcoWatch

https://www.ecowatch.com/marion-nestle-8-books-on-farming-and-food-that-deserve-more-attention-1891129099.amp.html

I’m overwhelmed by the avalanche of outstanding books that I run across or that get sent to me. But when forced to choose, I settle on these eight as some of the best writing and original research in the bunch. They deserve much more attention than they’ve received.

1. Food, Farms and Community: Exploring Food Systems by Lisa Chase and Vern Grubinger

Many people don’t understand what food systems are and it’s very hard to explain, so this book is a terrific introduction. The authors take a big-picture approach to explain how our food gets from production to consumption. They also focus on how we can create food and farming systems that promote the health of people and planet. It’s very readable.

2. The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World by Joel K. Bourne, Jr.

This book takes a look at industrial farming and discusses how food production must change to meet the world’s demands. But if you think the title sounds depressing, you shouldn’t. The food situation is so much better than it was 20 years ago. There’s so much more organic, local and seasonal growing. Students are interested in these issues and that’s inspiring to me. You can make progress without overturning the whole system. My personal measure is that when we started food studies at NYU in 1996, we were the only program like that in the country. Now every university offers food studies and has an organic garden.

3. From Field to Fork: Food Ethics for Everyone by Paul Thompson

Ethical dilemmas impact the way we shop for food. Should we buy organic or local? Should we care how farm animals are raised? For people who aren’t trained in ethics, it’s sometimes hard to think about these things and this book can help you delve into them.

4. Organic Struggle: The Movement for Sustainable Agriculture in the United States by Brian K. Obach

For me, the discussion of the development of the organic standards is the most interesting part of this book. It explains why it’s so important to maintain strict organic standards and why there’s such intense conflict about them. In fact, the biggest issue facing the organic industry is confidence in the standards.

5. Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean & Southern Flavors Remixed by Bryant Terry

Terry is an extraordinary cook. He’s really concerned about the health of African Americans, who tend to have much higher levels of chronic disease, so he sets out to demonstrate that it’s possible to cook a healthier, vegan diet using the ingredients of traditional African cuisine, like collards, grits and okra. I’ve never seen a book like this before.

6. Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America by Liz Carlisle

Carlisle is an incredible author (and Michael Pollan’s protégé). To write the book, she simply went to talk to farmers in Montana to find out what they were doing. It’s very lively. I attended her book tour and she actually brought the farmers with her—it was clear she was really passionate. Everyone is always talking about how farmers are failing, but this is a success story. It’s inspiring.

7. Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression by Janet Poppendieck

I have special interest in this one—I wrote the foreword. The author is fabulous and this book is particularly well done. Anyone who wants to really understand the Farm Bill and the fight about food stamps needs to read this book. We’re seeing enormous congressional fighting over SNAP right now and those same issues were there from the very beginning.

8. Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting Public Health by Nick Freudenberg

This book is compelling because it draws out the parallels between food issues and things like cigarettes, guns and alcohol. Food producers use the same corporate strategies as these other industries to enrich themselves at the expense of public health. I believe advocacy is the only way to beat the system and Freudenberg writes about ways for organizing against corporate power to create a healthier environment, organize against corporate power for a healthier, more sustainable environment.

Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of this blog.I officially launched it on May 29, 2007 with a post about the food movement.

Here is a reprise of that first post:

At last, this site begins