I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and I’m about to begin the final section. He’s diagnosed the problem, described how we got here, and now he’s going to share with us what we can do. It’s a bittersweet moment. I’ve been able to live most of my 28 years in ignorance. And ignorance is bliss, right? Well, no, but change is hard and once I finish this book, I don’t think I’ll ever shop, cook, or eat the same way again. Last night I went to Domino’s and got a medium pepperoni pizza and diet coke. I don’t even like Domino’s, but it was nearby and less disgusting than McDonald’s. It’s time to change bad habits, but it’s also hard to say goodbye. More on my personal journey another time.
If you’re in the Boston area, please join us in Somerville on Tuesday, November 25th at 7pm. We’ll eat some delicious food, discuss the book, and talk about our right to eat food. (Please RSVP to info [at] investedcitizens [.] org so we know how much food to make.)
Not in the area? Join us online the week before Thanksgiving and we’ll talk there.
If you need more reason to read Pollan, maybe you want to be like Barack Obama? Obama reads Pollan and had this to say recently:
I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs.”
Buy it at Better World Books (recommended), Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.
p.s. I like to sing “Book of November” to the tun of Wyclef’s Gone to November. Try it out. It’s catchy.
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