Quotes by Michael Pollan

“Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do.”

“In the debate over the use of antibiotics in agriculture, a distinction is usually made between their clinical and nonclinical uses. Public health advocates dont object to treating sick animals wit...”

“This, for many people, is what's most offensive about huntingto some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing”

“Darwin called such a process artificial, as opposed to natural, selection, but from the flowers point of view, this is a distinction without a difference: individual plants in which a trait desired...”

“The bubble logic driving tulipomania has since acquired a name: the greater fool theory. Although by any conventional measure it is folly to pay thousands for a tulip bulb (or for that matter an In...”

“The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's ...”

“I asked the feedlot manager why they didn't just spray the liquefied manure on neighboring farms. The farmers don't want it, he explained. The nitrogen and phosphorus levels are so high that sprayi...”

“Even in the pages of the New York Times and The New Yorker, it seems the epithet 'virtuous,' when applied to an act of personal environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically. Tell me: H...”

“Unlike any other form of thought, daydreaming is its own reward.”

“As I grew steadily more comfortable in the kitchen, I found that, much like gardening, most cooking manages to be agreeably absorbing without being too demanding intellectually. It leaves plenty of...”

“Agriculture changes the landscape more than anything else we do. It alters the composition of species. We don't realize it when we sit down to eat, but that is our most profound engagement with the...”

“A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”

“Simply by starting to cook again, you declare your independence from the culture of fast food. As soon as you cook, you start thinking about ingredients. You start thinking about plants and animals...”

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

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

“Species co-evolve with the other species they eat, and very often, a relationship of interdependence develops: I'll feed you if you spread around my genes. A gradual process of mutual adaptation tr...”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”