Michael Pollan may be the most important food writer in America today. He is certainly a favorite here at American Feast. We highly recommend his recent, best selling book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals". The book is an entertaining discussion of the fix we find ourselves in when we want to support local farmers, eat organic, protect the environment, keep a healthily balanced diet, and still enjoy the pleasures found in the great variety of foods available to us.

The dilemma comes because it is impossible to pursue all the results we want every time we buy food or prepare a meal. Mr. Pollan has said he prefers to buy local over organic if faced with the choice. Still, he's served organic salmon farmed in Scotland to dinner guests at his home. Compromises must be made, but that's not to say we shouldn't try to pursue an overall policy that moves us toward our most ambitious goals.

In an article in the New York Times, Mr. Pollan tackles U.S. government farm policy, or as he would have it, food policy. He cites the work of researcher Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington. Mr. Drewnowski found that "...the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational strategy is to eat badly - and get fat."

Government subsidies for corn, soybeans and wheat make it cheaper for food shoppers to get calories from junk food than from fresh produce. Junk foods, "contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening." The U.S. Surgeon General has called obesity an epidemic. The most reliable predictor of obesity is a person's wealth. Historically, poor people struggled to obtain the calories they needed. Now they get too many. The result has been soaring rates of obesity and diabetes, and the health care costs those afflictions engender.

Mr. Pollan points out the international impact of U.S. food policy. He says it is impossible to fully understand what is driving immigrants north from Mexico without understanding what U.S. agricultural policies are doing to rural agriculture in Mexico. Put simply, subsidized American corn flows into Mexico and corn farmers lose their livelihoods. They need work to support their families and they head to El Norte.

Mr. Pollan notes that it was the power of consumers that built the multi-billion dollar organic food industry. He's exhorting folks to go beyond speaking with their purses and start talking to elected officials while there's a "farm before Congress. That bill will set agricultural policy for years to come. Mr. Pollan says it is time for concerned "eaters" to speak up for change. He's convinced that,

At a minimum, these eaters want a bill that aligns agricultural policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to produce food cleanly, sustainably and humanely. Eaters want a bill that makes the most healthful calories in the supermarket competitive with the least healthful ones. Eaters want a bill that feeds schoolchildren fresh food from local farms rather than processed food from far away. Enlightened eaters also recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices.

To read Michael Pollan’s full article in the New York Times go to: You Are What You Grow

A previous post about Michael Pollan's views & observations can be found at: Michael Pollan Lecture