Michael Pollan

People in Slow Food understand that food is an environmental issue.

Fairness forces you – even when you’re writing a piece highly critical of, say, genetically modified food, as I have done – to make sure you represent the other side as extensively and as accurately as you possibly can.

In corn, I think I’ve found the key to the American food chain. If you look at a fast-food meal, a McDonald’s meal, virtually all the carbon in it – and what we eat is mostly carbon – comes from corn.

Corn is an efficient way to get energy calories off the land and soybeans are an efficient way of getting protein off the land, so we’ve designed a food system that produces a lot of cheap corn and soybeans resulting in a lot of cheap fast food.

At home I serve the kind of food I know the story behind.

Perhaps more than any other, the food industry is very sensitive to consumer demand.

High-quality food is better for your health.

In addition to contributing to erosion, pollution, food poisoning, and the dead zone, corn requires huge amounts of fossil fuel – it takes a half gallon of fossil fuel to produce a bushel of corn.

My work has also motivated me to put a lot of time into seeking out good food and to spend more money on it.

Every major food company now has an organic division. There’s more capital going into organic agriculture than ever before.