Michael Pollan Dishes on Michelle Obama and Food Rules

June 22nd, 2010 - Scott Shaffer

The Seattle Times interviewed food movement hero Michael Pollan about his latest book, Food Rules, the state of the food in America, and Michelle Obama. About the first lady, Pollan says,

She’s a very important voice in the food movement now, and I think is raising people’s consciousness, people who haven’t read a book like “Omnivore’s Dilemma” or “Food Rules” . . . People tend to underestimate these projects on the part of first ladies and think they’re kind of benign. But actually they can be quite powerful, and I think her contribution will be quite powerful.

Like Michael Pollan, Organic Authority is excited about several projects that the First Lady has been working on, from school lunch reform to the new-and-improved White House garden to her campaign to end childhood obesity.

Pollan also talks about his next book, which is going to be about how we turn raw ingredients into food through cooking and fermentation:

I’m working on a book about cooking, which is really a book about how we transfer things in nature through fire and water. Fermentation is another way we do it, whether we’re making wine or cheese or pickles or sausage. I’m interested in all the alchemies that go on in the kitchen.

Leave it to Michael Pollan to make chemistry interesting and important! Until the book comes out, you can check out this video of Laura tasting organic wine and cheese, this article on organic wines, and this recipe for blue cheese cabernet organic hamburgers. Yum! That should tide you over.

Image credit: Poptech

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What You Need to Know about the Farm Bill

June 14th, 2010 - Administrator

by Maria Rodale

Before your eyes completely glaze over and you skip over this little article to read something more fun, consider this: We only have one chance every five years to make significant changes to how we farm, how we feed our kids at school, how we protect our wildlife, how we fuel our cars and our homes and, finally, how we help those in need eat better.

Yes, the farm bill is not just about farming. It’s also the funder of school lunch programs, wildlife conservation, and food stamps (known as SNAP, for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

While we write blog posts and comment on Facebook pages, the agricultural chemical industry, the processed-foods industry, the oil industry, and lots of other industries are spending billions of dollars (which they made from our purchases, mind you) trying to prevent change that will make us all healthier, and lobbying to preserve their stranglehold on the government regulations (or non-regulations, if you prefer) that enable them to continue their toxic domination and contamination of our lives.

I’m not going to list all the reasons why we need to pay attention to the farm bill—for that you can read my book, Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Feed the World, Heal the Planet, and Keep Us Safe. But I am going to ask you to start paying more attention. Because you have something that those billion-dollar companies don’t—a powerful voice, that when united with other powerful voices, can harmonize together to create the most powerful change of all. That’s democracy.

But in order to make democratic change, we need to start using our voices and paying attention NOW. The next farm bill will be approved in 2012. That’s two years from now. But two years in democracy time are like two days in cyber time. Time is running out.

Here are a few websites where you can use your voice, get involved, and start making changes now that will result in a better future for at least the next five years!

Visit Maria Rodale’s home page.

Read More:What You Need to Know about the Farm Bill

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