“My path was through the garden. -Michael Pollan”
If you’re reading this from Canada, you’re probably very much aware of the state of journalism in this country. While the economy tanks, the Calgary Herald prints Spock and the U.S.S. Enterprise as the cover story. I enjoy Star Trek as much as the next person (perhaps even more so) but there’s a definite lack of priority in Canadian media for covering topics of real importance.
The situation is very similar in the United States, especially in the television realm. However, one glimmer of hope comes through each week with former L.B.J. staffer and lifelong journalist Bill Moyers on his appropriately titled Journal. From interviewing award-winning journalist Barbara Ehrenreich to devoting an entire one-hour episode to the issue of hunger in America, Moyers is one of the few voices in broadcast media who will actually go for the jugular in investigation. There is no topic too daunting for Moyers; whether it be the misdeeds of history’s most powerful empire or bringing justice to the forefront so that it may roll down like waters. One of those voices, the American journalist and food policy critic Michael Pollan, was interviewed back in November of last year.
Pollan, the author of multiple bestselling books such as Botany of Desire, Omnivore’s Dilemma and most recently In Defense of Food, has become the de facto public face of the local food movement, making a cause celebre of combating the public food system. In this solid interview with Moyers, Pollan answers the usual questions, such as why he got into gardening, as well as some of the “bigger picture” questions such as the American obesity epidemic and the homogenizing commodification of our food supply. While the interview is in no sense akin to reading one of Pollan’s books, it gives a nice snippet of his overall argument–that Americans, and the planet, would be far healthier if we did things a little slower and a little differently.
While I’m a huge fan of Pollan’s work and believe him to be serving one of the most important journalistic services of our time, I still have a creeping feeling about his popularity. Pollan is an immensely successful author, and has exposed thousands of people to food issues in a fashion so accessible that the average person could easily pick up a copy of his books and find themselves losing an afternoon while they eagerly finish it.
Potentially, however, the thousands Pollan has touched may be the very people I saw in droves at Barbara Kingsolver’s presentation of her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle at Knox last year. Many of the people touched by these books are people that can very much afford to dive into the local food market as consumers and comfortably purchase local/ethical foods as a niche product. These patrons are also likely to have the time to go outside and plant a garden (or have the yard to plant the garden in). While it’s great that so many people are getting invested in these issues, Pollan’s popularity and hipness really needs to trickle down into the communities that require food security the most. The question still remains, how do we sell the average person on sustainable food systems? How do we create a “big tent” food movement with the wisdom of Michael Pollan? After all, shifting our food system might require one of the greatest fundamental changes in the way we live our lives–more than social democracy, more than buying carbon credits, more than changing a few fluorescent light bulbs. How do we get everyone invested in food security as a new, important form of radical politics?
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