Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael PollanRead
Why don't we pay more attention to who our farmers are? We would never be as careless choosing an auto mechanic or babysitter as we are about who grows our food.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of knowing and valuing the source of our food, comparing it to the careful consideration we give to choosing service providers.
Michael Pollan's quote highlights a significant disconnect in how we value the people who produce our food compared to other professionals we hire. He suggests that we should be just as discerning in selecting our farmers as we are when choosing mechanics or babysitters, as the quality of our food impacts our health and well-being.
Themes
FoodFarmersCarefulnessHealthResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions at farmer's markets to promote local farming.
More from Michael Pollan
All quotes →You look how much sugar is in a typical supermarket loaf of bread: it's a lot of sugar. It's just become one of those sugar delivery systems in our food economy.
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There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we're eating them every day.
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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.
Michael PollanRead
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.
Michael PollanRead
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