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There is a deliberate effort to undermine food culture to sell us processed food. The family meal is a challenge if you're General Mills or Kellogg or one of these companies, or McDonald's, because the family meal is usually one thing shared.
Michael Pollan
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote critiques how processed food companies undermine traditional family meals to increase sales of their products.

In this quote, Michael Pollan highlights the conflict between the values of family meals and the interests of large food corporations. He suggests that these companies, such as McDonald's and General Mills, prefer to promote processed foods over shared meals at home because the latter represents a threat to their business model. By fostering a culture that diminishes the significance of home-cooked meals, they can encourage consumers to turn to convenience foods instead.

Themes

Food CultureProcessed FoodFamily MealGeneral MillsKelloggMcdonald'S

In practice

Example use cases

During a talk on nutrition, one might quote Pollan to emphasize the importance of family meals in promoting healthier eating habits.

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Meat is a mighty contributor to climate change and other environmental problems. The amount of meat we're eating is one of the leading causes of climate change. It's as important as the kind of car you drive - whether you eat meat a lot or how much meat you eat.
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[Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.
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He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.
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