Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness. Michael Pollan More Quotes by Michael Pollan More Quotes From Michael Pollan Pay more, eat less. Diversify your diet and eat wild foods when you can. Michael Pollan You want to say the thing that will drive everybody in the direction you want to go. But as a writer you have a pact with your readers that you'll be really straight with them at all times. Michael Pollan all-time pact want In the end I'm still a writer. I'm still a journalist, and my first responsibility is to my readers. That's where I have to draw the line. Michael Pollan lines responsibility firsts You have to draw lines between being a journalist and an activist. Michael Pollan activist journalist lines All money for agricultural extension, land grant universities has been toward developing industrial food. Lots of money has been invested toward maximizing yield. If you took even a small amount of that money and put it toward organic research, I don't have any doubts you could match those yields. Michael Pollan yield land doubt There's a lot of research that suggests that organic yields are close or superior to conventional yields depending on factors like climate. In a drought year an organic field of corn will yield more - considerably more - than a conventional field; organic fields hold moisture better so they don't need as much water. It simply isn't true that organic yields are lower than conventional yields. Michael Pollan yield water years Every peasant cuisine has incredible ingenious tricks for getting a lot of nutrition out of a small amount of ingredients. There are people who don't have the money to invest in better food, but perhaps they have the time. There's a trade-off: The more time you're willing to put into food preparation, the less money you have to spend. Michael Pollan ingredients preparation people One of the most irresponsible things we can do is eat in ignorance, without any awareness of what our eating is doing to the world or to other species. Michael Pollan ignorance eating world I try to write in the first person - the first person not of a journalist but of a carnivore, an eater, a gardener, someone trying to figure out what to feed his family. Michael Pollan writing trying firsts I really try to write as an ordinary person would, not as someone who's too sophisticated about food, or too knowledgeable about things. Michael Pollan ordinary writing trying I work very hard on finding good characters who can explain things to me, and I use them to help tell the story. I organize my pieces not just around people but around animals and plants, energy flows, the path that carbon takes through the food system. Michael Pollan animal character people I try very hard to tell stories and not lecture. I try to approach things as an amateur and not an expert, so that when I'm doing something, I'm starting out in a place a lot like where my readers start out - which is to say, naïve. Michael Pollan experts stories trying In a way, the more techniques you apply, the less important the ingredients are. It shouldn't be that way, but you can get away with it. But if you're highlighting this astounding artichoke, it's got to be an astounding artichoke. Michael Pollan technique important way I think historically modern economics, capitalist economics, tends to erode moral categories... And this is where I think the right gets capitalism wrong. They kind of assume that there is a moral equivalence or moral valence to capitalism, but I tend to think that economics erodes all the kind of cultural taboos and inhibitions and values it comes into contact with. Michael Pollan erode moral thinking I think there's a real tension between capitalism and morality. That's not to say these systems aren't powerful and useful, but to assume that capitalism can somehow assure moral behavior or character, that's just a pipe dream. Michael Pollan powerful real dream It's very important to get out, to do reporting. It's also really interesting. I come at it as a journalist, and I think that's helped me, and I come at it as someone who sees nature wherever he looks, and that helps. Michael Pollan important interesting thinking A natural historian is somebody who looks at something in terms of its relationship to the rest of the natural world. You look at things ecologically. When you see a cow on a feedlot, you don't just see a cow; you see a cow that is eating certain food. You follow that food and that food takes you back to a corn field. Michael Pollan cows looks world The first step towards solving the omnivore's dilemma is knowledge: eating with full consciousness. When that happens, I have a lot of confidence that people will make good choices. Michael Pollan choices people firsts My hope is that if people have the knowledge, and if they actually see where their food comes from and have access to the information, they will make better ethical choices. Michael Pollan information choices people We all have different priorities. There's no one single set of ethical rules. Michael Pollan ethical priorities different
