Michael Pollan: Public Intellectual

Have you ever walked into your grocery store, into the produce aisle, picked up a carton of blueberries and read “Product of Chile” on the label? Of course you have. If it isn’t blueberries, it’s pineapple, or non-piney apples, or strawberries.  Those foods traveled thousands of miles, from massive industrial farms, owned by large agricultural conglomerates, to end up in our refrigerators. But most people don’t concern themselves with such issues—the American mindset of immediacy and consumption has conditioned us not to think about how the food for sale in our neighborhood supermarkets made it to its respective aisles. Its there, it looks delicious, and by golly we are going to eat it. Michael Pollan, however has made a career of actively concerning himself with the origin and sustainability of the food he consumes.

Mr. Pollan has written seven books, dozens of articles, and even starred in the film Food, Inc. all of which primarily pertain to the food we eat, its production, history, and societal, environmental, and economic impact.  His latest book Food Rules, outlines simple rules to eat by “in this era of dazzling food science, supersize portions and widespread dietary confusion.”  One of his previous works The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by The New York Times and the Washington Post. A winner of the James Beard Award for best food writing, he is also a contributing writer for The Times Magazine and served as executive editor for Harpers Magazine for a number of years. Currently he holds the position of Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California Berkeley, where he has been teaching classes since 2003. The genius of his work is that it engages a profusion of disciplines (including anthropology, history, science, and investigative journalism), and appeals to the public because of its potential to be incorporated into everyday life.

Since the publication of his book The Botany of Desire in 2002, Mr. Pollan has remained the front running voice of what has come to be called the “Food Movement,” a return to seasonal eating, local production of food, support of small farmers, and above all healthy diet influenced by the eating habits of generations past. Actually, one of Mr. Pollan’s “Food Rules” is: avoid anything “your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food."  Would your great-great-grandma Mildred know what to do with a squishy plastic tube full of neon-colored Go-Gurt? Mine wouldn’t.

As much as Mr. Pollan fulfills his role as an academic, he has also proven himself as a kind of modern day Upton Sinclair.  He is almost exclusively responsible for exposing the ways in which the Food Industry compromises the environment, working conditions, animal rights, or even the healthfulness of the product in order to turn a profit.  We forget that the agriculture and meat industries are composed of powerful corporations that control both food production from seedling to sitting on the shelf and the policies that govern the growing, processing, and trading of food.

Admittedly, Mr. Pollan has the advantage of gaining exposure due to the fact that his field of study and expertise is enjoying a high level of trendiness in the current cultural climate. Farmers markets, urban gardens, restaurants which source their ingredients from local farmers, and organic supermarkets such as Whole Foods are all very much in vogue right now, and have been for the past five or so years. What’s more, it doesn’t appear to be losing steam. Haven’t you heard? Even Michelle Obama has an organic vegetable garden flourishing on the lawn at the White House.

So what you say? At least we aren’t starving? No we decidedly are not starving, as 36.6% of Americans are overweight and 1.9 million cases of type II diabetes were diagnosed last year. But food’s overall effect doesn’t end at the human body. The livestock industry is one of the major producers of greenhouse gasses, which have been said to affect climate change, whereas the agriculture industry is one of the top consumers of petroleum.  Pesticides used on crops to keep them bug-free seep into the ground and water table, thereby contaminating water supplies, and large amounts of the residues they leave in the human body correlate highly with incidence of Attention Deficit Disorder in children. Food is at the root of so many different politically and socially relevant issues, and Mr. Pollan was one of the first people to uncover it and then challenge the force behind it—an industry that was for so long seen as virtuous (nourishing the world one chicken nugget at a time, if you will).  The Food Industry marketed itself as such, thereby creating a myth that they were looking out for the health and well being of American families.

Though his critical examination of the anthropological history of foodstuffs themselves as well as the inner-workings of the companies responsible for their consumption, and the government policies that allow them to continue doing business as usual, Mr. Pollan unequivocally put an end to that romantic notion. He was one of the first to open a floodgate of information that has influenced the way many Americans think about the food they eat, which in turn has helped fuel the success of organizations such as Slow Food USA.

Mr. Pollan does not, however, call for earth-shattering change. His approach is one of exposure, education, and encouragement: expose the Food Industry’s corruption, educate people how to buy and eat fresh, local, seasonal, and above all REAL food, and encourage them to make small adjustments to their habits that are achievable on an individual level—for example shopping at the farmers market instead of Ralphs (aka Schnucks for all you St. Louisans out there), cooking dinner instead of eating out. These type of changes, if enacted en mass have the ability to affect change. This is where Mr. Pollan’s work blurs the line between public intellectual and activist. On the one hand, he is a critic, backed by an institution of higher learning, voicing a viewpoint shaped by scientific research and observation of cultural phenomena (i/e the rise of fast and processed foods), which continues to criticize the Food Industry marketed goodwill myth. Pollan’s examination of the big picture, academic background, and critical myth-busting prose position him well within the category of public intellectual, as Stephen Mack describes in his essay, “The Decline of the Public Intellectual(?).” At the same time though, Pollan does attempt to inspire his audience to DO something, even though that something may not be explicitly stated. Then again, a good critic’s commentary should theoretically incite a reaction, whether strong disagreement with his point of view, or identification with his argument that causes the desired leap into eating habit reformation. Michael Pollan's writing and speeches exhibit the qualities of a public intellectual, and I would argue even allow him to become a model for one working in the 21st century. Certainly though, he is a beacon for the food movement, and will continue to be an important force within it.