Wednesday, May 10, 2006
"The Omnivore's Dilemma" author Michael Pollan on how Wall Street has driven America's obesity epidemic...
Was access much of problem in writing this?
MP: Yes, it's amazing that it should have become so hard. I wasn't able to get into the factories where corn is turned into high-fructose corn syrup, which you wouldn't think would be so controversial, and I wasn't able to get onto the kill floor of a large meat plant. They allowed me to see everything but the knocker who actually administers the fatal blow. It's become more difficult since Sept. 11. The food industry has a new argument, which is partly sincere. They've recognized that with such a centralized food supply, somebody dropping a vial of bacterium into a vat of hamburger could reach tens of thousands of people. But it has also become an excuse to keep the prying eyes of journalists away from how our food is made, which is unfortunate because we would be better off if we had more transparency in our food system. If there was a right of access to meat slaughterhouses, they wouldn't be slaughtering 400 beefs an hour, allowing manure to be smeared on carcasses, and going so fast that live animals get cut open. The best we could do for the safety of our food supply, for the beauty of our landscape and for the quality of our water would be to decentralize meat and agriculture.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/04/08/pollan/index.html
Which leads us to the genre you call "supermarket pastoral." What is it exactly?
MP: Walking through Whole Foods, I joke in the book, is a literary experience. You need to be a pretty good literary critic, in other words, to figure out what's really being said on these labels. They're written in what I call supermarket pastoral, which is a very persuasive form. I read a lot of labels and I'm still a sucker for it. Free-range chicken, for instance, can mean nothing more than a 20,000-bird shed with a tiny little lawn and a little door that's opened two weeks before the hens are slaughtered. These little yards are purely symbolic. Chickens don't use them because they're too careful. They've never been outside before; there's not enough room for all of them and they're a flock animal. So it's a conceit to appeal to the consumer. When you see "free-range," it's not happening, but if you see "pastured" chicken, which you sometimes will at a farmers market, that's real. And pastured eggs, by the way, are a superior product in every way. I know a farmer in California who grows them. They're $6 a dozen and I consider them worth it.
MP: Yes, it's amazing that it should have become so hard. I wasn't able to get into the factories where corn is turned into high-fructose corn syrup, which you wouldn't think would be so controversial, and I wasn't able to get onto the kill floor of a large meat plant. They allowed me to see everything but the knocker who actually administers the fatal blow. It's become more difficult since Sept. 11. The food industry has a new argument, which is partly sincere. They've recognized that with such a centralized food supply, somebody dropping a vial of bacterium into a vat of hamburger could reach tens of thousands of people. But it has also become an excuse to keep the prying eyes of journalists away from how our food is made, which is unfortunate because we would be better off if we had more transparency in our food system. If there was a right of access to meat slaughterhouses, they wouldn't be slaughtering 400 beefs an hour, allowing manure to be smeared on carcasses, and going so fast that live animals get cut open. The best we could do for the safety of our food supply, for the beauty of our landscape and for the quality of our water would be to decentralize meat and agriculture.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/04/08/pollan/index.html
Which leads us to the genre you call "supermarket pastoral." What is it exactly?
MP: Walking through Whole Foods, I joke in the book, is a literary experience. You need to be a pretty good literary critic, in other words, to figure out what's really being said on these labels. They're written in what I call supermarket pastoral, which is a very persuasive form. I read a lot of labels and I'm still a sucker for it. Free-range chicken, for instance, can mean nothing more than a 20,000-bird shed with a tiny little lawn and a little door that's opened two weeks before the hens are slaughtered. These little yards are purely symbolic. Chickens don't use them because they're too careful. They've never been outside before; there's not enough room for all of them and they're a flock animal. So it's a conceit to appeal to the consumer. When you see "free-range," it's not happening, but if you see "pastured" chicken, which you sometimes will at a farmers market, that's real. And pastured eggs, by the way, are a superior product in every way. I know a farmer in California who grows them. They're $6 a dozen and I consider them worth it.
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