I have a very love/hate set of feelings for Michael Pollan. The problem is that he is usually right in his core thesis, but then he builds a bunch of privileged, wrong-headed assumptions on top of that thesis and I get angry.
Such is the case with his latest video, which neatly encapsulates everything that is wrong with America's food industry. First, Pollan explains how anything that is cooked for you by a corporation is designed first and foremost to be as addictive as possible. They couch it in terms like "craveability," but what they mean is "addictive." They add as much fat, salt, and sugar as they possibly can, and design their foods to be delicious and cheap. Not healthy or filling: delicious and cheap.
This is a big problem, because people love delicious, cheap food. (I know I do.) A lot of people are getting very sick and obese on our country's amazing supply of delicious, cheap food. (I know I have.)
But instead of lobbying for change or proposing ways in which our food industry can have our own better interests in mind, Pollan goes straight to blaming the victim. It's not the food industry's fault for stuffing us with incredibly healthy foods; it's our fault for not cooking our own food.
Pollan breezily assumes that everyone has the skills, money, time, and equipment to cook all of their own food. Well, they don't.
Pollan also assumes that if you have to cook it from scratch, you won't overeat or eat unhealthily, because it will be too much trouble. This is such a mind-blowing misunderstanding of addiction that you have to admire his blasé attitude towards his very own rhetoric.
Michael Pollan has a very excellent grasp of the food industry, but very little knowledge about how people think, act, and feel. I wish he'd stick to his core competencies, and stop himself right before he starts telling people what to do.
Image courtesy Flickr/Jess and Colin
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