Regular readers will know I am a fan of Michael Pollan, and he has just published a new article in the New York Times Magazine.
Pollan has really done a lot to educate all of us about the truth of where our food comes from, how it’s made and to promote locally sourced foods.
Honestly, in recent months I’ve had some issues with some of the things he’s said. On one hand he has advocated not eating any thing your great grand mother would not recognize as food, and on the other hand has offered advice on how to buy foods from the supermarket. In fact these two ideas seem very contradictory to me, because the vegetables and other supermarket foods are very different from what our ancestors ate.
With this recent article, my opinion of Pollan has dramatically improved again!
In this recent article he stresses the importance of living a lifestyle with a low carbon footprint, and argues having your own vegetable garden and growing at least some of your own food is an important part of that! He so rightly points out we have to go far beyond the low energy light bulbs Al Gore suggests, and make a complete break from the cheap energy, consumption oriented economy of today. Words cannot describe how happy I am to see him emphasize what we as consumers shouldn’t buy, rather than what we should buy.
Now I hope he goes back to what he said about not eating anything our great grandmothers wouldn’t recognize as food, connect this with home vegetable gardens, promote heirloom fruits and vegetables and preserving biodiversity through saving your own seeds!
