Michael Pollan et al

http://www.alternet.org/environment/140 ... t_secrets/

I read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Fast Food Nation and (not mentioned) The China Study, and a few others. Once your start reading about our food, the journey taken from start to table...you will want to put in a garden, and possibly raise your own meat. It is like I ate as a child, however seeing the animals killed left a big impression, as well.

I saw Pollan speak at UC Davis a year or so ago. For someone who's doing so much rabble rousing, he came across as a pretty reasonable, unassuming guy.

I saw Pollan speak at UC Davis a year or so ago. For someone who's doing so much rabble rousing, he came across as a pretty reasonable, unassuming guy.

And his recent appearance on the Bill Maher show on cable gave exactly the same impressions, Mike. He wouldn't give in to Maher's obvious attempts to caricaturize the issues and stretch them all out of shape. He actually backed away quite forcefully from many of Maher's assertions and blatant attempts to demonize.

So while a man of ideas and ethics, he's not at all the wild eyed rabble rouser in person. I suspect that is as much a creation of the so-called press as most of the other celebrity figures out there.

[Jenise]

Can I throw in a completely gratuitous mention of how good looking he is?

So while a man of ideas and ethics, he's not at all the wild eyed rabble rouser in person. I suspect that is as much a creation of the so-called press as most of the other celebrity figures out there.

His history I think supports that view. He is a journalist who got into this whole business of writing about food through the back door, as it were. In many ways, his book "The Botany of Desire" is the most interesting thing he's yet written, though Omnivore's Dilemma may be the more significant. I see the trajectory of his career as one of investigation: out of curiosity he started looking into what went into the foods that he ate, and the further he go in, the more appalled he became, culminating in "In Defense of Food." The history of revolutionary movements shows that when reasonable people are brought into the struggle alongside the zealots is when revolutions really gain momentum. Current events in Iran may bear witness to the same observation.

Mark Lipton