Michael Pollan's new book advises us to eat more real food

WALKING THE TALK

JOURNALIST MICHAEL Pollan spent years investigating the dilemmas and compromises and contradictions surrounding what we eat. As his topic burst into mainstream popularity, he distilled his research into seven simple words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Now, his message has moved into the realm of practical advice on how to carry out that directive. His short new book, "Food Rules," covers 64 basic precepts for eating well, and has been praised as the most "intelligent, sensible and simple-to-follow" principles of nutrition around. In the process, Pollan himself has morphed from an investigative reporter to a hero in the national movement to make better choices about food.

Pollan will speak at the American Cheese Society conference in Seattle in August; he talked with us in advance by phone from his Berkeley, Calif., home about food, politics, Seattle and fermentation.

Q: What brings you to the Seattle conference?

A: Anything having to do with fermentation I'm interested in, so I thought it would be really good to meet these cheesemakers. There's such an interesting renaissance going on in cheesemaking in this country. Plus, I like to eat cheese. Given a choice between a cheese course and a dessert course, I'll usually go for the cheese.

Q: Why fermentation?

A: 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.

Q: Tell me how "Food Rules" came about.

A: That book is a distillation of the lessons learned in the two before it . . . It really was doctors who had proposed the idea to me. I kept hearing doctors say, I wish I had a pamphlet to give my patients (with advice). It's also an attempt to reach beyond the choir . . . I did, in a more self-conscious way than I've ever done before, set out to write a book that would reach a whole bunch of people who haven't (read the previous books) or thought that hard about where our food comes from. Because the issue is health, and we have a public-health crisis around food . . .

I think of these rules as, really, algorithms. I'm not going to tell you, "Don't eat cookies" . . . There is no one diet proscribed in that book; there are many ways of eating that would conform to these rules . . . I'm just trying to kind of mentally equip you to look at food a slightly different way, and the net result would be to eat more real food and avoid edible foodlike substances. What I've learned is, we can argue about nutrients forever, but the key distinction is really how processed the food is. The more we can eat whole foods, the more healthy and happy we're going to be. It's a really simple message, and I just keep boiling it down and boiling it down. The next one is going to be an index card or a poster.

Q: Are there any of the rules you find it hard to follow yourself?

A: Yes. Stopping eating before I'm full; I really struggle with that. I really enjoy food.

Q: How do you compare the situation in places like Berkeley and Seattle with most of the rest of the country?

A: We're really lucky. We have it easy by comparison. We have really good fresh food in the markets 12 months of the year. And we have access to pastured meat, for example, which is pretty rare . . .

I remember when "Omnivore's Dilemma" came out, this was in 2006, I did an event at Elliott Bay (Book Co.). This was my first indication there was really something going on in this country around food. This was at the beginning of the book tour, and there was a crowd in the basement there that was so raucous, and there was so much energy coursing through that room. It was clear to me it was a political energy, it wasn't about my book or me. On the same tour, I went to New York, and it was dead . . . A lot of this movement really began in Seattle and Portland and San Francisco, and it has moved east from there.

Q: If we're doing well here in Seattle already, what should our next step be?

A: I think the challenge before the food movement is to democratize itself and figure out ways, both in terms of policies and practices, that will make this food more accessible to more people.

Q: When we spoke two years ago, you said our country was at a crossroads when it came to food and health, that we will either normalize diseases like obesity and diabetes or we will change. Where are we now?

A: We're still at that crossroads. But I think there are some positive things going on. Since we spoke, Michelle Obama has entered the fray. 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.

The other thing going on is health-care reform . . . I really do think it's going to change the political dynamic around food because you're creating a situation where the government and the health insurers are on the hook for all this chronic disease linked to diet in a way they weren't before . . . Every case of Type II diabetes (health insurers) can prevent is going to save them hundreds of thousands of dollars. You may find them taking an interest in things like soda taxes and the farm bill and what kinds of things are we subsidizing. What the food movement has lacked until now is a powerful corporate ally, and it may have gotten one.

Q: I was talking to a woman in Seattle who promotes good food policies, and she told me "Michael Pollan can't do this alone." Are people trying to put a leadership role on you?

A: This is a movement that is in need of leadership, and here I am talking about this all the time. But it's not a role I'm well suited to. I'm not a political actor. I know how to talk to the public, I don't know how to negotiate with the food industry, I don't know how to move legislation in Congress, I don't know how to write legislation. If you told me, "OK, buddy, put up or shut up, how do we write the farm bill?" I don't know how we do that. And the movement needs people who do, people who understand the ways of Washington. But there are signs that these people are emerging. There are a lot of young people getting into the food movement now; they ask me how to get involved. I tell them to go to law school and do things like that. They all want to be chefs and writers, but we need other people, other roles.

We are pre-Earth Day, where the environmental movement was before April 1970. I don't know what our Earth Day will be like, but I think we're really at the beginning of something still.

Q: We're such a big country, and places like Seattle can get dismissed as blue-state strongholds, limited to liberals — or full of wackos. How can we come together around issues of food?

A: One of the most hopeful things is, I go to the least likely places and find incredible ferment around these issues. It is wrong to say this is limited to the coasts anymore . . . I don't think Seattle is — it might be more wacky than some of these places, but there is a lot of wackiness going on in a lot of places now around food. I'm very encouraged about that. You may think you're in a bubble, but that bubble is getting bigger and bigger.

Rebekah Denn is a Seattle freelance writer. John Lok is a Seattle Times staff photographer.