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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,

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Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers,

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Speaker 1: to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions

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Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Eat food,

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Speaker 1: mostly plants, not too much. That's a quote from my

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Speaker 1: Guest Today writer Michael Pollen. Pollen is the author of

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Speaker 1: seven books, including Food Rules and Eaters Manual, The Omnivore's Dilemma,

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Speaker 1: and In Defense of Food. But don't call him an

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Speaker 1: obsessive foodie. He's more comfortable with the classification of nature geek,

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Speaker 1: whatever you call him. Pollen reshaped our relationship to what's

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Speaker 1: on our dinner plate. You might think Michael Pollen was

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Speaker 1: a young kid scheming how to get broccoli into his

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Speaker 1: lunch room, but the food activist in him developed later.

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Speaker 1: The love of writing came first. I had this idea

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Speaker 1: I was going to be a college professor in teach English.

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Speaker 1: And then I got there and I did a year

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Speaker 1: of it, and it was really great. I mean, had

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Speaker 1: a great experience. Um, But then I was getting to

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Speaker 1: the hard part. I had to learn German and read

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Speaker 1: the fairy queen and all this stuff I didn't want

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Speaker 1: to do. And I had this wonderful journalism job this

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Speaker 1: summer after my master's, So I decided I could write

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Speaker 1: the kind of stuff I wanted to write as a

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Speaker 1: journalist rather than as an academic. And you worked as

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Speaker 1: a journalist where oh, I had a succession of jobs.

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Speaker 1: I worked for a bunch of failed startups. Magazine Harper Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Harper's the only one that survived. But at a certain

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Speaker 1: point I had to make a judgment was I going

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Speaker 1: to be a writer or an editor? And I had

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Speaker 1: and I had written my first book, which is called

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Speaker 1: Second Nature, while I was moonlighting at Harper's. I was

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Speaker 1: doing it evenings and weekends. But then I had a kid,

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Speaker 1: and you lose your your ability to use your weekends

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Speaker 1: and nights that way. So at that point I was

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Speaker 1: at this fork in the read Was I an editor

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Speaker 1: a writer? I decided I wanted. I already had contracted

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Speaker 1: for my second book. I was way behind on it.

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Speaker 1: I would have owed a lot of money to star

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Speaker 1: op it. So we decided let's leave town, live as

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Speaker 1: cheaply as we could in rural Connecticut, and UM and

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Speaker 1: I would just do be a writer and uh, um,

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Speaker 1: and describe your first two books, which are not food related,

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Speaker 1: were very exactly No, their their nature related. All the

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Speaker 1: work is really about nature. I mean, I think my

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Speaker 1: my meta subject is our engagement with the natural world.

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Speaker 1: So my first but I didn't know that when I

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Speaker 1: started off. My first book was about gardening. Um. In

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Speaker 1: graduate school, I had studied Emerson and Threaux, and I

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Speaker 1: was very I was completely invested in these American was

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Speaker 1: beautiful American ideas about nature as divine and you know,

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Speaker 1: God's second book with the Landscape and the wilderness was

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Speaker 1: this very special place. And I love those ideas and

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Speaker 1: love those writers. But when you start to garden, those

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Speaker 1: ideas are a disaster because they preach um, it just

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Speaker 1: kind of everybody gets along, you know, you don't don't

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Speaker 1: worry about the squirrels or the woodchucks. And so I

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Speaker 1: planted a garden based on those ideas, and it had

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Speaker 1: no fence, and because fence and the violence of nature,

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Speaker 1: greatd here. Yeah, And I was challenged. I was challenged

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Speaker 1: by woodchucks, and I got into a war with one

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Speaker 1: woodchuck in particular that I'm not very proud of how

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Speaker 1: I conducted UM and this this woodchuck. I would plant

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Speaker 1: the garden one weekend, he would come along and mow

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Speaker 1: it down. The next weekend, I would do it again.

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Speaker 1: And UM, I realized that all the kind of intellectual

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Speaker 1: armaments I had were not adequate to dealing with this problem.

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Speaker 1: And I started doing some things that I'm really not

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Speaker 1: proud of. So, for example, UM, I I read up

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Speaker 1: on the woodchuck. That was my normal approach, and I said, Okay,

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Speaker 1: he's gonna have a burrow and the borrow is gonna

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Speaker 1: have all these different rooms and they love. They're really

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Speaker 1: clean freaks woodchucks. You wouldn't know. They look kind of sloppy,

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Speaker 1: but they're clean freaks. So the first thing I did

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Speaker 1: was I poured some like creosote and molasses down his hole.

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Speaker 1: I found the borrow, thinking he would be grossed out,

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Speaker 1: would move on. He wasn't. Um I he came back.

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Speaker 1: He just made a new burrow and I went around it,

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Speaker 1: and then I stuffed it with rocks and soil, thinking

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Speaker 1: I would, you know, suffocate them, but they always have

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Speaker 1: a back door. And I finally, UM, condominium developer should

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Speaker 1: hire you clear out there and control department you're like

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Speaker 1: a New York landlord. Yeah, or Donald Trump, I can

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Speaker 1: get rid of those old ladies and standing the way

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Speaker 1: of his parking lot. And I burrowed to the other side. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then I got this idea. I was driving along

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Speaker 1: the road and I saw some roadkill, a dead woodchuck flattened,

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Speaker 1: and I actually like scooped it onto a piece of cardboard,

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Speaker 1: drove it home, stuffed it in the hole, thinking I

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Speaker 1: would intimidate him. Basically, it didn't work, so ultimately I

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Speaker 1: was reduced to doing something that I am a little

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Speaker 1: bit ashamed of as someone who's thought of as an

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Speaker 1: environmental writer. I I poured a gallon of gasoline down

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Speaker 1: his um, down his burrow, thinking that it would fan

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Speaker 1: out through all the little rooms, the latrine room, the

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Speaker 1: food room, the kitchen, and I threw matt each in

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Speaker 1: there and uh and in my in my mind, the

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Speaker 1: fire was gonna like go way down the You know,

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Speaker 1: I'd seen this image Crower basic. Well, actually it was

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Speaker 1: modeled on There was a news item about a new

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Speaker 1: fuel they developed for jet airliners that would be slower

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Speaker 1: to combust, and they set up an old seven oh

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Speaker 1: seven on an airfield somewhere and they put a camera

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Speaker 1: in it and they lit a fire and to see

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Speaker 1: if this would give people time to get out of

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Speaker 1: the plane. But didn't work at all, and you just

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Speaker 1: saw this image of the fire just shooting down the fuselage.

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Speaker 1: And that was exactly what I wanted to happen. But

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Speaker 1: as uh as you know, I'm an English major, not

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Speaker 1: a physics major, and a physics major would have known

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Speaker 1: that fire is never going to go away from oxygen.

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Speaker 1: It's always gonna go tord oxygen. So the fire came

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Speaker 1: the wrong way and there was this torrent of flame

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Speaker 1: that just kind of threw me back and shocked me

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Speaker 1: into an awareness that this is probably not the best

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Speaker 1: way to deal with the natural world. You can literally

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Speaker 1: hear the Woodchuck laughing inside the bar. It was. They

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Speaker 1: had a lot of caddy check in this, It really was.

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Speaker 1: It was. It was embarrassing, um, but it was. It

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Speaker 1: was that. Well, what I learned is that I get

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Speaker 1: to ask you that question, what did you learn, Michael

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Speaker 1: pol these misadventures with the Woodchuck? I learned that Emerson

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Speaker 1: and Threaw really didn't have very good guidance to us

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Speaker 1: on doing things like farming, like gardening, like engaging with

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Speaker 1: nature when we have no choice but to intervene. They

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Speaker 1: were very good for lot, Yeah, exactly, and so that

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Speaker 1: you need another ethic in order to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to deal with Look, as Americans, we've been very good

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Speaker 1: at creating wilderness. We invented the wilderness, and we locked

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Speaker 1: up and threw away the key to about eight percent

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Speaker 1: of the American land masks. Really impressive accomplishment. Probably our

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Speaker 1: greatest contribution of world culture is the wilderness park. The

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Speaker 1: rest of the world is like wilderness. You know. It

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Speaker 1: was considered ugly in Europe and uh, you know the

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Speaker 1: warts of nature, you know, and they hated it. Um.

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Speaker 1: But we didn't have an ethic for dealing with the

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Speaker 1: other which is why we made such a mess of it.

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Speaker 1: The wilderness ethic is silent about agriculture. It's silent about cities,

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Speaker 1: it's silent about suburbs. And so I realized that I

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Speaker 1: needed to look for a new way to think about

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Speaker 1: nature in these places I was drawn to like gardens

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Speaker 1: and farms, and and so I began that that journey

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Speaker 1: that I'm still on. And your next book was one.

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Speaker 1: My next book was about architecture. It was about building.

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Speaker 1: I built building on my property. It was called a

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Speaker 1: place of my own was a complete bomb um because

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Speaker 1: the building was The building is fantastic. The book it

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Speaker 1: just I made a few mistakes with the book, but

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Speaker 1: it too was about nature, I realized. And it's in

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Speaker 1: your second book that you really figure out what you're

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Speaker 1: about as a writer. And I think all writers have

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Speaker 1: a set of kind of final questions that if you

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Speaker 1: scratch deep enough, you will see that everything Michael Lewis

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Speaker 1: writes is about success. You know, whether he's writing about

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Speaker 1: sports or Wall Street, that's fundamentally the question that he's

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Speaker 1: interested in. And you can go through any numbers and

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Speaker 1: find what that question. Is it about money? Is it

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Speaker 1: about love? And I realized writing the book about architecture,

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Speaker 1: which I thought was a departure from nature Um, what

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Speaker 1: I was drawn to was the nature issues in architecture. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, does nature tell us how to build in

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Speaker 1: any way? Does it have any useful information or is

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Speaker 1: it a pure confection of culture? Did you conclude that

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Speaker 1: it did happen? Yeah, And at the time, architecture was

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Speaker 1: going down this incredibly theoretical path where it was all language.

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Speaker 1: This is the moment of Peter Eisenman and Robert Venturi

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Speaker 1: and and deconstruction. And it was completely out there and

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Speaker 1: there were no rules. You can do whatever you wanted.

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Speaker 1: But in fact there are rules. I mean they're based

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Speaker 1: on our bodies. What makes our bodies feel good in

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Speaker 1: a certain kind of space. Um, not to mention the

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Speaker 1: nature of materials and trees and and uh So I

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Speaker 1: kind of like realized, Oh, I guess that's my topic.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you learned from writing the book was

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Speaker 1: to get what you want to be writing. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I went back to plants in the next book. I

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Speaker 1: wrote a book called The Botany Desire, which was kind

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Speaker 1: of a d dive into our relationship with four domesticated

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Speaker 1: species um, each of which got ahead in life by

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Speaker 1: gratifying human desires. So there's an apple, which gratifies our

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Speaker 1: desire for sweetness, profound desire. There's tulips gratifies our desire

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Speaker 1: for beauty. Cannabis gratifies our desire to change our consciousness.

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Speaker 1: You know, your next book is is it about drugs?

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Speaker 1: It's about psychedelic experience. Okay, we're gonna we're getting back there.

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Speaker 1: So so Botany of desire to talk to about cannabis. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that was my That's where I started looking at

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Speaker 1: that really interesting question is why is the species? Do

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Speaker 1: we want to change our consciousness? I mean, it's not adaptive, right,

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Speaker 1: it puts you at all sorts of risk. But we

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Speaker 1: have this desire and in fact, many animals have it too,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of a mystery which which animals have

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Speaker 1: a desire to Elephants love to get drunk, and you

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Speaker 1: can imagine how much it takes. Um, how do they

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Speaker 1: get drunk? Well, they'll accidentally, you know, there's a few ways.

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Speaker 1: I mean in nature, when fruit rots, it ferments, and

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Speaker 1: so if you find a split coconut and it just

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Speaker 1: sits there for a while, it's got alcohol in it,

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Speaker 1: and they'll they love that. But in India they're they're

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Speaker 1: also all these wonderful reports of them. Um, someone will

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Speaker 1: have a still or you know, and they'll just knock

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Speaker 1: it over and take whatever. Yeah, and there are many

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Speaker 1: animals and I don't know if you have cats, but

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Speaker 1: if you've ever given it, I mean it was my

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Speaker 1: cat's problem with cat neep. Actually that sensitized me to this.

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Speaker 1: I had a cat that and I grew catin up

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Speaker 1: for him, and he came down to the garden every

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Speaker 1: evening when I was this is in Connecticut, when I

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Speaker 1: was harvesting somebody for dinner, and what he wanted was

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Speaker 1: ahead of his cat neet. But every night I had

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Speaker 1: to show him where it was. He forgot where it

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Speaker 1: was every single night because he would get so screwed

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Speaker 1: up on it and was wasted. He was wasted and that.

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Speaker 1: But I realized it was a very interesting strategy on

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Speaker 1: the part of the plant because these are defense chemicals,

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Speaker 1: and rather than kill him outright, which would have led

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Speaker 1: to the evolution of resistance to their toxin, they just

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Speaker 1: confused them so they can't find the plan the next day.

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Speaker 1: In Cooked, which I watched a couple episodes of Your Costar,

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Speaker 1: in the first half, as a lizard in the ground

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Speaker 1: in the Western Australian outback, a huge, ugly, damn lizard

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Speaker 1: is being cooked by these people who seem to enjoy

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Speaker 1: it actually and uh and that opening is incredible, the

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Speaker 1: fire break they do. And then a pig is the

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Speaker 1: coaster of the second half. But you go to a

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Speaker 1: factory farm and you you touch on the conditions there,

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Speaker 1: so you're saying to people, eat pig and eat meat

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Speaker 1: if it's raised the right way. If it's a saying,

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Speaker 1: if you're gonna eat meat, you owe it to yourself

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Speaker 1: and you owe it to the animals to take a

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Speaker 1: look at the process and that if you can't own that,

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Speaker 1: the fact that an animal has to die for you

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Speaker 1: to eat meat, something a lot of us don't think about,

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Speaker 1: and in some senses live the way they live. And

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Speaker 1: then and then it's even worse. I mean, there are

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Speaker 1: different ways that an animal can live, obviously, and I

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Speaker 1: think that makes a profound difference, at least to me

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Speaker 1: and my own eating decisions. Um, So we wanted to

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Speaker 1: kind of like remind people that it's very consequential act

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Speaker 1: when you eat meat. And the wonder of the modern

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Speaker 1: food chain, the industrialized food chain, is that the process

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Speaker 1: is completely hidden from us. You know, these these meat

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Speaker 1: shows up at shrink wrapped, it's it's they don't even

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Speaker 1: leave bones in it anymore. It's just protoplasm. You know,

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Speaker 1: I could have come from anywhere. Kids don't realize that

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Speaker 1: when they need a chicken nugget. And I know this

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Speaker 1: from my own kid. He hadn't made the connection between

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Speaker 1: a chicken nugget and chicken. And I think the film

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Speaker 1: opens the way it does. Alex give me who's the

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Speaker 1: director of that episode and oversaw the whole thing. I

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Speaker 1: really wanted to reconnect with the fundamentals of eating meat

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Speaker 1: and it's not always a pretty thing. And and I

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Speaker 1: think it was a way to say right off the bat,

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Speaker 1: this is not food porn um. You're gonna see some

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Speaker 1: things that are not appetizing in this film as well

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Speaker 1: as some things that are incredibly appetizing. And over the

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Speaker 1: course of that one hour, you go from perhaps some

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Speaker 1: feeling of disgust. There's that young woman who eats the

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Speaker 1: pork is amazing moments. Yeah, I'm thinking to myself, you

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Speaker 1: must have very incredible powers for the vegetarian woke in

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Speaker 1: house and go I'll have some pick. How the hell

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Speaker 1: did that happened? Good barbecue is really temptation. It's a

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Speaker 1: powerful temptation. The smell of it, the uh and I

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Speaker 1: was you know, that was not a setup. We had

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Speaker 1: no idea she was. We had it. We had made

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Speaker 1: vegetarian sides because I knew any group now you have

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Speaker 1: in California with twenty people, you're gonna have four or

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Speaker 1: five vegetarians, and but she was like really curious about it,

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Speaker 1: but we didn't twist her arm. There's some vegetarians online

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Speaker 1: are very upset about that scene. I've been getting some

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Speaker 1: grief that you know, we forced her into it or something.

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Speaker 1: But if you watch it, you can sell and and

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Speaker 1: the play of emotions over her face is just priceless. Um,

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Speaker 1: and she did. She was kind of I mean, great

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Speaker 1: barbecue is pretty sure had that wonderful look that kind

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Speaker 1: of I hate to admit it, but this is really good. Now.

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Speaker 1: One of the most interesting parts of the films when

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Speaker 1: you get into the second program and you talk about

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Speaker 1: food service. At one point, when you're talking about the

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Speaker 1: evolution of food service in this country, you basically have

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Speaker 1: somebody say, the guy who's selling you your gas now

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Speaker 1: is selling you your food. He's flinging a pizza at you,

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Speaker 1: throw a window or whatever, sacks and so forth, and

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Speaker 1: you make this incredibly compelling statement about how, you know,

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Speaker 1: we just where is this stuff coming from. When you

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Speaker 1: talk about the cost of protest going up, and you

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Speaker 1: talk about the amount of time down to down to

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Speaker 1: twenty seven minutes using to prepare food, do you think

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Speaker 1: that there's an answer for this in American society. Well,

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Speaker 1: I do. I'm an optimist, and you know, I would

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Speaker 1: love nothing more than to see a renaissance of home cooking.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, sometimes societies try things and they

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Speaker 1: realize they don't work out. We've tried this industrial food

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Speaker 1: system now for you know, a generation basically, and we're

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Speaker 1: seeing what it does to us. I mean, we have,

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Speaker 1: you know, epidemic chronic diseases UM. You know, type two

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Speaker 1: diabetes is going to affect a third of people born

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Speaker 1: in the last ten years. A third. We're spending most

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Speaker 1: of our health care money on UM treating chronic diseases

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Speaker 1: linked to diet totally preventable. The Aborigines in the first

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Speaker 1: episode talking about how until sugar was in tradition that

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Speaker 1: they weren't fat people. That's right. So it's had a

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Speaker 1: profound effect on us. And I sometimes think, and this

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Speaker 1: isn't this is kind of an overblown analogy. But you know,

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Speaker 1: when crack came into the ghettos, it was like a

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Speaker 1: huge issue, big problems, and but at a certain point

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Speaker 1: communities turned against it and they realized that this is

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Speaker 1: really not working for us, this is destroying our communities.

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Speaker 1: I think we are having We're not at quite at

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Speaker 1: that stage yet, but we're having a moment of recognition

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Speaker 1: that the way we're eating is causing more problems than

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Speaker 1: it is giving us solutions. And it is giving us solutions.

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Speaker 1: It's it's freeing us from the labor of cooking. If

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Speaker 1: we don't want to cook, we don't have to anymore.

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Speaker 1: But when you turn over your your meal preparation to

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Speaker 1: large industrial corporations, we see what they do. They create

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Speaker 1: feed lots, you know, these brutal landscapes where animals now

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Speaker 1: live and they're fit. You know, they're giving hormones and

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Speaker 1: they're given antibiotics. Uh. They create these monocultures or corn

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Speaker 1: and soybeans that have taken over the Midwest. UM. And

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Speaker 1: you know, agriculture now is um the second biggest contributor

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Speaker 1: to climate change. It's a third of greenhouse gases somewhere between.

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Speaker 1: Greenhouse gases come from agriculture. UM. And that's particularly weird

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Speaker 1: because you have to remember, at the base of the

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Speaker 1: food chain is a plant doing photosynthesis, Okay, the ultimate

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Speaker 1: in sustainable production, right, turning sunlight into sugars into food.

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Speaker 1: So food, the food system doesn't have to be a

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Speaker 1: contributor to climate change. It could be the opposite. But

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Speaker 1: we've were essentially eating fossil fuel. Now it's interesting you

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Speaker 1: say that because a friend of mine said to me,

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Speaker 1: he said, oh wow, wonderful for you that you own

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Speaker 1: acreage on Long Island where you live, because we're all

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Speaker 1: going to be growing our own food in there's fifteen

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Speaker 1: or twenty years because of because of drought driven by

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Speaker 1: global warming. Like where Yeah, No, this is I mean,

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Speaker 1: when we say that the food system is unsustainable, we're

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Speaker 1: not just saying we have an esthetic objection to it.

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Speaker 1: We're saying that their problems with it that are going

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Speaker 1: to lead to a breakdown. And we don't know exactly

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Speaker 1: where the breakdown will come. It could be, you know,

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Speaker 1: shortage of fossil fuel, because that's really what runs it all.

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Speaker 1: The fertilizer is made from fossil fuel. That transportation, the processing. UM.

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Speaker 1: We now, just to give you an idea, UM, we

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Speaker 1: used to generate for every calorie of fossil fuel energy

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Speaker 1: we put into the food system, we got back two

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Speaker 1: point three calories of food. Okay, that was a net gain,

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Speaker 1: and that was the sun that was solar energy. Now,

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Speaker 1: we put in ten calories of fossil fuel energy to

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Speaker 1: get one calorie of food, So we're losing nine calories

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Speaker 1: of fossil fuel energy for every calory we get. And

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Speaker 1: that's meat production behind large. So it might break down there,

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Speaker 1: or it may break down because we can't afford the

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Speaker 1: healthcare effects or the climate change effects. I don't know

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Speaker 1: where that breakdown happens, but yeah, it's it's on a

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Speaker 1: it's on a really dangerous trajectory. And there was so

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Speaker 1: much locally grown stuff from Riverhead. I'm just going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the area that I live in from Riverhead,

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Speaker 1: Up Island, west of uh, the Hampton's as people called,

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Speaker 1: I hate that phrase. But and then there's some local

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Speaker 1: agriculture on the east end where I live, and yet

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Speaker 1: everything there that's grown locally has higher right costs. And

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Speaker 1: for the that what it is. When I grew up

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Speaker 1: on Long Island, we would drive out there and they

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Speaker 1: were all farms. You know, there were potato farm Long

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Speaker 1: Island potatoes were famous from there, and UH and there

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Speaker 1: was you know, my grandfather was in the produce business

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Speaker 1: on Long Island and he was buying produced from all

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Speaker 1: the local farmers but then he began buying their land

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Speaker 1: and turning it into shopping centers and things like that,

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Speaker 1: and so you have this translation process as and real

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Speaker 1: estate costs do drive what happens to what happens to

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Speaker 1: land and some of the prices. The fact that high quality,

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Speaker 1: local organic produce the demand is huge. People are learning

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Speaker 1: that it makes a difference how something has grown, and

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Speaker 1: that that you know, hasty vegetables or are an amazing thing,

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Speaker 1: but you know they don't take as much work to cook.

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Speaker 1: But you notice, probably as I do, that that the

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Speaker 1: best meals I ever had is like to go to

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Speaker 1: a an Ecuadorian rice and beans placed upon eighty nine

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Speaker 1: and Amsterdam World taxi drivers eat well, that's peasant cuisine.

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Speaker 1: And peasant cuisine is inexpensive, democratic and wonderful. But it's

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Speaker 1: being destroyed and it's being intentionally destroyed. And there's a

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Speaker 1: scene in the second episode, the Water episode where they

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Speaker 1: go and I thought this was amazing journalism on the

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Speaker 1: part of the filmmaker Caroline Suit produced that one um

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Speaker 1: where they go to the Nestly factory where they are

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to sell the Indians who India,

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Speaker 1: Indians who have this amazing food culture and and and

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Speaker 1: cling to it. And I mean, I know, I have

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Speaker 1: Indian students and they still grind spices every day fresh

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Speaker 1: and they bring tiffins with their lunch and they won't

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Speaker 1: eat our crap. You know, they're just they're gonna stick

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Speaker 1: to their Indian food. Um. But they were trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out how how to give the Tandori flavor to

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Speaker 1: Maggie noodles, those you know, poor walls noodles and um.

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Speaker 1: And they had all these chefs and they're trying to

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Speaker 1: duplicate this flavor. And they are systematically taking apart those

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Speaker 1: cuisines and turning them into flavoring. Do you think it's responsible?

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Speaker 1: How do governments decide or do they legislate even to

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Speaker 1: make processed food that are easy to cook and feed

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Speaker 1: people a lot of calories more available because the quickest

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Speaker 1: road to political instability is hunger and high food prices.

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Speaker 1: We've seen that revolution, I mean beginning with the French

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Speaker 1: Revolution and the the Arab Spring was about high wheet.

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Speaker 1: That what's coming on in any of they just want

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Speaker 1: to feed people, Uh. In India. In India, there there's this,

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Speaker 1: there's several there's a cultural phenomenon too, I mean, which

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Speaker 1: is that the prestige of Western food, the prestige of

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Speaker 1: American junk food. It's sexy, yeah, any doubt. And you

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Speaker 1: and you're entering the middle class, you start eating meat

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Speaker 1: like an American, you start eating KFC like an American,

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Speaker 1: and this idea which and that's marketing, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's really good marketing, and that that that this stuff,

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Speaker 1: which is so inferior to what they have, is the

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Speaker 1: glamorous food, and that's part of it. But also the

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Speaker 1: fact that cooking takes work, and there are other ways

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Speaker 1: to spend our time. And if you offer to do

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Speaker 1: the work for somebody and you've got something you just

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Speaker 1: have to pour water on and it's acceptable. Some people

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Speaker 1: will go along with it. I hope the Indians don't

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Speaker 1: fall for the Maggie noodle ploy. And if there's any

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Speaker 1: culture that won't, it's that one. More on what Michael

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Speaker 1: Pollen thinks about the future of food coming up explore

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Speaker 1: the Here's the Thing archives, where I ask Amy Schumer,

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Speaker 1: is she a foodie? You're not. I love food, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know about it. Take a listen at Here's

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Speaker 1: the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're

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Speaker 1: listening to here's the thing. In two thousand twelve, former

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Speaker 1: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced a proposal to

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00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:20,480
Speaker 1: limit the sales of sugary drinks larger than sixteen ounces.

429
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: The proposal, which the soft drink industry fought hard against,

430
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,199
Speaker 1: was finally killed by the New York State Court of

431
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 1: Appeals two years later. My Guest Today writer Michael Pollen

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00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,160
Speaker 1: paid close attention to the case. Bloomberg had the right idea.

433
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: It was very interesting to watch what happened to him, um,

434
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:40,640
Speaker 1: and how badly he got beaten up for this. I mean,

435
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:44,040
Speaker 1: he wasn't taken away anyone soda. He was basically saying,

436
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:47,159
Speaker 1: just to have a pause between that sixteen ounce soda

437
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: and the next sixteen ounces. I just think, do you

438
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 1: want to do that? That's all. It's a It's what

439
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: the social scientists called a nudge, right, which is which

440
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:59,359
Speaker 1: is the least um interfering kind of social engineering you

441
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: could possibly have. Right, It's like do you opt into

442
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 1: organ donation or opt out of organ donation? Okay, these

443
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 1: are all called nudges. And so this was merely a nudge.

444
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: And it was like people's freedom was being taken away

445
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,480
Speaker 1: from them. I think there are a couple of problems

446
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 1: with what he did. I think he made one tactical mistake,

447
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: which is he should have talked about children, because the

448
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: nanny culture, which is really the argument used you know,

449
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: you're the government shouldn't be a nanny, doesn't apply to kids.

450
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 1: Kids can't make their own personal responsibility is meaningless when

451
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: you're talking to kids. Adults have to make decisions for them,

452
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: whether it's parents or other people in the community. And

453
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: so had he made this about protecting children, I think

454
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: he would not have gotten as much grief that was.

455
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 1: I think that was a mistake, but it was very

456
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: interesting to see how we put up with social engineering.

457
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 1: Every time we walk into the supermarket. I mean, we

458
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 1: are being manipulated in ten ways till Sunday. I mean

459
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,359
Speaker 1: when you walk down from the beats of the music

460
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: that they play, to the high of the oatmeal as

461
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,919
Speaker 1: opposed to the lucky charms, to where the milk is

462
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:09,119
Speaker 1: all that stuff? Now, um, are you diet couch? Do

463
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 1: you weigh yourself? Have you ever been heavier than you

464
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: wanted to be? And as a result of what like,

465
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: what did you eat? In my twenties, I worked in

466
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: New York, worked for a magazine, and every day for lunch,

467
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: I had a cheeseburger, French fries, and a beer, which

468
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:25,879
Speaker 1: seemed totally you have it at the same place was

469
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: a fabulous cheeseburger Charlie Os or someplace in Times Square

470
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:31,920
Speaker 1: where it was just near my office, and my friend

471
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: Michael Schwartz and I would go out there and and

472
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: ask what we would have, and we thought that was

473
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: totally normal. And I weighed about I don't know, thirty

474
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: or forty more pounds than I do now. I you know,

475
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 1: I was sensitized to food relatively late in life, and

476
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: now I don't count calories. I seldom weigh myself, and

477
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,399
Speaker 1: I eat whatever I want to eat, but merely what

478
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: you want. Yeah, what I want to eat, what gives

479
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: me pleasure. I mean, my journalism is made certain things

480
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: very hard to eat. I mean I've been on those

481
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: feed lots and in those hot confinement operations and and

482
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: industrially produced feed lot and meat. I just this no

483
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 1: appeal at all, and I will avoid it. I mean,

484
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: if if if I go to your house and you

485
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: serve me some feed lot steak. I'm not going to

486
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: make a scene, but I haven't had beef since nineteen

487
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: nine two. I haven't had pork since nine two, and

488
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 1: I don't miss either one of them. So why did

489
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 1: you stop beating meat and two? Uh? Well, the truth

490
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: is is that initially I did it to seduce my

491
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 1: former wife. She told me she was a vegetarian. I said,

492
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: oh my god, so am I. I took me to

493
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: a restaurant. I said, I'll have the roasted squash. Oh

494
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: this is great. I'll make it too keen wash salad.

495
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: But then she saw a couple in and out burger

496
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: rappers stuffed under the seat of my car a few times,

497
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: and she said, we know, why are you lying to me?

498
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 1: Why don't you? And then Peter, I have no appetite

499
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: for I just especially when you say to me the

500
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 1: culture of deception you're involved in, Like now, the beef

501
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 1: industry has beef blend. So every hamburger you eat in

502
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: a fast restaurant is they're like, okay, there's seven stocks,

503
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: and which one of us caused the go ahead? Animals

504
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 1: represented in the average burger unbelievable, believe. But once I

505
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 1: realized that that's they're going to go to those links

506
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: to hide something. I said, well, I always tell people,

507
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 1: I say you liked meat, to go get yourself a

508
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: really nice piece of stick, pay the money for really

509
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,959
Speaker 1: quality and you know where I've kind I went through

510
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 1: that whole exercise too, and learning a lot about what

511
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:31,439
Speaker 1: was going on with their meat eating. I was doing

512
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: all this reporting on the industry and and also philosophically

513
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: went through this thought process which I wrote about in

514
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 1: The Omnivorous Dilemma. But I came out in a surprising place,

515
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: which was eating meat in a very limited way because

516
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: there was a kind of agriculture I wanted to support, basically,

517
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: which was grass fed beef production, which I think environmentally

518
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: can be really beneficial. And and also the presence of

519
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: animals on farms. The most sustainable farms I've seen, and

520
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 1: I've been looking for great sustainable farms for the last

521
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: fifteen years, have both plants and animals working together, as

522
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: you find in nature always um and the plants feed

523
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: the animals, and the animals with their waist feed the plants,

524
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,719
Speaker 1: and that nutrient loop is like essential to nature's um

525
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: uh successful operations. And so there's a handful of farmers

526
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: doing this really well in the country right now, and

527
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: I want to support their work. And these animals also

528
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: get to live, um, you know, a very good life

529
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 1: in keeping with their creature, really character. They get to

530
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: have the behaviors that they want and the diet that

531
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: they should have. And as the farmers say, they have

532
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: one bad day and um, and of course that's the

533
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: day of their slaughter. And UM. I'm just very comfortable

534
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: supporting that. It's hard to find that meat. It's expensive

535
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: and and if you limit yourself to that meat, you

536
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: will only have meat like once a week. And that's

537
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: about what. But the guy on the on the water

538
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: episode w says, have the cake and the cookies in

539
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:55,679
Speaker 1: the ice cream, as long as you make it all yourself,

540
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 1: make it all yourself. When you when I watched the show,

541
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: I uh, beyond the croc that you have there, that

542
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 1: was your mother's croc that you cooked in that pot. Um,

543
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 1: you do get the sense you miss home a little bit,

544
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: is that there's a boy in you that had a

545
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: want was your Your mother was adored by all New

546
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 1: Yorker was obviously because of her column for many many years. Yeah,

547
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,399
Speaker 1: and she was a great, responsive, responsible. Yeah, you know,

548
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: she fed us really well, and she she made a

549
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 1: home cooked meal, I would say, four nights a week,

550
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: and uh, we got to have a TV dinner on

551
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 1: Saturdays when they went out, which was a great treat.

552
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: And Sunday we'd have order in something but um, often

553
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: Chinese food. And yeah, she would make beautiful meals. She

554
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: she loved Julia Child and was learning from Julie Child,

555
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: so she would actually like we would get to have

556
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: booth Burgan on Tuesday night because she was trying it

557
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: out and see if she could make it. So we

558
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: were very fortunate. She's still a great cook. Um. So yeah,

559
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: I mean that's some of my love of food definitely

560
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,959
Speaker 1: comes from that and the memories of the table, you know, um,

561
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: being with my sisters and my mom. My father, oddly enough,

562
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: usually wasn't at dinner because he had this long commute

563
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: from Manhattan, and so he would get there and have

564
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: leftovers a little bit later. I know, it's a shame

565
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: he had like a two hour commute, but amazing things

566
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: happened at the table. And you know, as you give

567
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: up cooking, you give up eating together, and when when

568
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: you start going to the microwavable meal. Everybody gets their own,

569
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: and there's something about eating from the same pot that

570
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: puts people on the same page psychologically, I think, And

571
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: we give that up and increasingly we're eating alone. We're

572
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: eating in the car of American food gets eaten in

573
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: the car right now, Um, we eat alone way too

574
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: often and so we're losing. It's not just about the food.

575
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: I mean, food is important, but there are the institutions

576
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: that come with it. Now, your son is viewed in

577
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: the film in the second episode doing his little contribution.

578
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: Does he does he still enjoy food and people the camera? No, no, no, no,

579
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: they're you know, that was taken when he was fourteen.

580
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: Actually he's now twenty three, so that footage is old

581
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: and you actually see him again in the fourth episode

582
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: in his full he's a big hairy guy. Now. It's funny.

583
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: He had a very complex history with food, which is

584
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: that he really couldn't need it. For about eight years.

585
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: He was one of those really picky eaters only eight

586
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: white food drove us absolutely crazy. It was very hard

587
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: to feed and we were actually happy if he would

588
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: eat a McDonald's meal because at least he was getting

589
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: some protet because he was one of these kids. It

590
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: was noodles rice. Um, no, no, that would be mixing food, macaroni.

591
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: He was a purist. He was a purist, hated sauces,

592
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: would never put butter on noodles. When we went traveling,

593
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: we would bring his brand to pasta with us to

594
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: like a resort, and we'd say, would you make a

595
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: ball of this? And he and they would cook up

596
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: his barilla pasta, his noodles the shape that he liked

597
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: at the moment, and he would take one bite and

598
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: he said, this tastes different. Of course, the water was

599
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: different and he could taste it, and so he just

600
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: he just said, this is horrible. So he started bringing

601
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: the water from home. We didn't go that fard. What

602
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: does he do now? He works for an architect he's

603
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: he's a junior designer and an architecture firm in Brooklyn.

604
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: But in in high school he went to work in

605
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: a restaurant and he did prep cooking at a really

606
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: good restaurant near us, and um, he learned to eat

607
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:07,239
Speaker 1: there and he watched how food was made. And if

608
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: kids cook, they will eat what they cook. And that

609
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: was a really important insight for us. If you have

610
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: a kid who's really picky, get him in the kitchen,

611
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:17,719
Speaker 1: make them do something, make them make what I love,

612
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: and make whatever they want, and they will eat it

613
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: because the mystery of like what's hiding under that sauce?

614
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: And you know, they kids think you're putting something over

615
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,479
Speaker 1: on them whenever you serve them food. But if they

616
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: make it, they're like, oh, it's okay. It's made of this,

617
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: which is normal in that, which is normal in this thing,

618
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: and and maybe it's okay. And so he started eating

619
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: and now he loves food. He's a great eater. He's

620
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: a really great cook. Um. So, No, one of the

621
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: things you touch on is the evolution of cooking in

622
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: terms of feminism. The second episode talks about how you

623
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: know what women are out the door doing other things?

624
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: Do you feel that men and women we can find

625
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: some way where we can achieve something culturally where we

626
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: can both share the cooking without a doubt. That's what

627
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: we have to do. That's I mean, the answer is

628
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: not to get women back in the kitchen. No, and

629
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: it shouldn't happen, And it's to get the whole family

630
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: back in the kitchen. And uh, it's enormously important to

631
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: get your kids cooking. I mean, I really think it's

632
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: irresponsible parenting to to send a kid out into the

633
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 1: world not having a clue out of roasted chicken or

634
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: how to how to make a basic meal. Um, it's

635
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: it's a really critical life skill for their health, for

636
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: their success, you know, dating, for all these kind of things.

637
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: It's it's a big deal. And we're sending kids out

638
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: a whole generation and they don't have a clue, and

639
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: they're totally dependent on the industry, which means they lose

640
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: control of their diet and they lose control of the

641
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: ability to make these decisions about what kind of food

642
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: system they want to support. So I think it's very

643
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: important to get everybody in the kitchen. And what happened

644
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 1: with feminism and food A story we tell in the

645
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: second episode is that the industry have been trying to

646
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: insinuate itself into the American kitchen for a hundred years

647
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: with processed food. Women who were doing most of the

648
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: cooking were rejecting it. They just didn't feel good about

649
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: having these companies cook for them. They couldn't take credit

650
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: for what they made. Quality wasn't very good. Then you

651
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: have this this tension that erupts when women go back

652
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: to work, and in households across America, you have this

653
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: argument about housework because it's not fair that women work

654
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: and also do childcare and also clean and also cook.

655
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: And so there was this very tense renegotiation going on,

656
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: and before we could complete it, the industry steps forward

657
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: and say, hey, stop arguing, we got you covered. We'll

658
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: do it all. And KFC has this billboard campaign across

659
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: America with an image of their big red and white

660
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: bucket of chicken and two words above women's liberation, and

661
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: they aligned it was it was sort of like the

662
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: quote says, mother can find out what is happening in

663
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: the outside world. My god, what a time counsel shot

664
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: that is. But you know, the idea that liberation would

665
00:33:54,560 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: disguise dependence in fact on these corporations was lost on everybody.

666
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: And so so the important point though, is that that

667
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: these companies let men off the hook as much as

668
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: they let women off the hook because men didn't want

669
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,439
Speaker 1: to do any more work. And so when you had

670
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: companies coming saying, don't argue, we'll do it, everybody jumped, well,

671
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: what's wrong with how do you fight, they're gonna win

672
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: because they're oh yes and no. I mean, we all

673
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 1: have power. I mean one of the great things about

674
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: this issue is we get three votes today, you know,

675
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: and people are voting in a different way for a

676
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: different kind of food system. I mean, eating is a

677
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: political act. And um, those of us who can afford

678
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: to buy the sustainable chicken and beef or whatever, you know,

679
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: not everyone has the same vote, and that's unfortunate. And

680
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 1: that's why voting with your fork is not We also

681
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: need to vote with our votes, and we need new

682
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: policies without question, um and policy change you'd like to see, well,

683
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: the big policy change, I mean right now, as as

684
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: the film suggests, we're we're subsidizing the least healthy calories.

685
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: We subsidize the sweeteners and the soda. We subsidize the

686
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: building blocks of junk food, which is corn and soy.

687
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: That's what the government subsidizes. We do nothing for the

688
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 1: people growing program with energy. We subsidized oil and we

689
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: don't exactly. So we have to we have to align

690
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: our agricultural policies with our health and environmental objectives. Right now,

691
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: they're working across purposes. We are subsidizing the creation of

692
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup. At the same time,

693
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 1: the government is also paying for dialysis for for type

694
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: two diabetes. That's crazy, that's it's supporting both sides in

695
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: the war on type two diabetes. UM. Obviously, you have

696
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 1: members of your family, your your sister's husband, of the

697
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: well known actor, people who suffered from diseases and have

698
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: been sick with diseases. Do you wonder everyth there's a

699
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: link between diet and some of these diseases that are

700
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: non diabetic related diseases. I think there's a link between

701
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: a lot of disease and diet. I I don't know

702
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: about Parkinson's. I've never seen any research about that. UM.

703
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: I think we will find that Alzheimer's is connected, that

704
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: it is a disease of inflammation. Basically, there's a kind

705
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: of a grand unified theory of a great many diseases

706
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: that's coming to the floor, and it's built around the

707
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: idea of inflammation. That we have bodies that are now inflamed.

708
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: That's why we have so many more allergies, so many

709
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: more autoimmune conditions. And it may turn out that Alzheimer's

710
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 1: is another one of those inflammatory diseases. And what inflames

711
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: us is a shitty diet, is a junk food diet,

712
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: and we know that and we can we can see

713
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: you can feed people, um, a junk food meal with

714
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: lots of fat and sugar and salt, and you can

715
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: check their markers for inflammation within hours and you see

716
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:30,320
Speaker 1: them spike. And many of us live in a permanently

717
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: inflammed condition because of the way we're eating. So it's

718
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: no wonder we're getting these diseases. But Parkinson's, you know,

719
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: I don't think we know. Um. I'm a believer in

720
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: the some uni unifying theory as well, which what is

721
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: it that's causing Parkinson's and and autism clusters and this

722
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:48,320
Speaker 1: whole lot of things that we didn't deal with in

723
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 1: these numbers before. And you know, we are also exposed

724
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: to lots of toxins. And there are some people who

725
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 1: think that Parkinson's is related to pesticides. Some people I know,

726
00:36:57,719 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: they posit that. You know, they go over to Europe

727
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: and they eat the bread and eat the pasta. They

728
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: don't have the same problem. They don't have the bloating,

729
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: they don't have and they commack, are they are they

730
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 1: imagining that. Yeah, there, I'm pretty sure they're imagining it

731
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: for two reasons. One, there's no G M O wheat

732
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: on the market anywhere in the world. It hasn't been approved.

733
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been approved, but Monsanto's declined to sell

734
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: it because the wheat farmers don't want it. So far

735
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: to most of the wheat that you eat in Europe

736
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: is grown in like North Dakota and Saskatchewan. They don't

737
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: grow enough wheat. So I mean it may be that

738
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: in Europe you're getting bread that's properly fermented. We talked

739
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: about this in the third episode, is that we've sped

740
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 1: up the making of bread in such a way that

741
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: the gluten doesn't get broken down. So instead of having

742
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: these long sour dough fermentations we I went to I

743
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,839
Speaker 1: I went to a wonder bread plant, and they can

744
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: with thirty seven different chemicals get a loaf of bread

745
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: to to do everything within four hours, you know, rise, baked, package,

746
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and but they're not properly fermenting it.

747
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: So therefore the gluten is not breaking down, and it

748
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: may be that change that is giving people a lot

749
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: of trouble with gluten um, it's gluten plus something else. Yeah,

750
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: I think it is something else. And and but they're different,

751
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: I mean people, they're different. I mean there are real

752
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: people with Celiac disease who are allergic to gluten in

753
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: any form and shouldn't eat it. But then there's this

754
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 1: massive people who are convinced that if they just got

755
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: off gluten, you know, they would sleep better, their sex

756
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: would be better, their their lives would be fine. And

757
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: there's a very powerful marketing machine encouraging us to feel

758
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: this way. Um. I just think that the number of

759
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: gluten intolerant people um is growing so much faster than

760
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: any biological change in the human species can account for.

761
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: So there are some real their people struggling with it.

762
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: And it may because they're inflamed it, maybe because their microbiomes. Yeah,

763
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: people will think that for quickest about And but we're

764
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 1: always looking for dietary salvation in this country. We're always

765
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: pointing to the evil nutrient and the blessed nutrient. And

766
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: it used to be saturated fat with the evil nutrient.

767
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:00,799
Speaker 1: Now it's gluten and sugar. And there'll be another one

768
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: next year. So yes or no question? Is the book

769
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: Cooked and especially the show Cook, which has got a

770
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: very warm tone to it. It's a very warm and

771
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: very wealthy celebration, but it's a very warm, warm program.

772
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: Do you think in some part that this was something

773
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 1: you did to answer some charges of elitism against some

774
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: of the work you've done. Some people have found your

775
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: work rather elitist, you know, I think that we were

776
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 1: trying to We didn't want to put a lot of

777
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: chefs in this, We didn't want this to be a

778
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: foodie thing. I hate the I hate the word foodie

779
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: and everything that attaches to it. And that cooking is

780
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: this universe, human universal people do it all over the

781
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,399
Speaker 1: world every different socio economic scale. But do you think

782
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: do you think you bring that to the four more

783
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 1: so in this project than any else you've done. Maybe

784
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 1: maybe we have, Um, I mean it is you know,

785
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 1: cooking is a very democratic activity. It's still available to

786
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: all of us. We still have kitchens. They still sell

787
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: houses with kitchens and rent houses with kitchens, and we

788
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: have pots and pans and knives, and they still saw

789
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: they still sell raw ingredients down at the supermarket along

790
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: with the rotissary, chick and everything else. Um, and so

791
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: it is I don't buy that. It's elitist, and um

792
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 1: the charges sometimes made and um, any kind of concern

793
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: and interest in food is is is you know, is elitist,

794
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: and it's it's very interesting that companies like well, yeah,

795
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 1: it's very interesting that companies like McDonald's get to occupy

796
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: the populist high ground. Multinational companies are offering the democratic food.

797
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: I don't buy that. So my last question for you is,

798
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:29,879
Speaker 1: what right do you have to write a book about

799
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: psychedelic drugs? What possible? Well, I don't have a lot

800
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 1: of experience with them. Actually, what's what's the curiosity for you?

801
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: The curiosity for me is there's a revival of research

802
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: around psychedelics, and we are learning amazing things about the

803
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: brain by studying what happens to people on psilocybin, especially

804
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: an LSD. To some extent, these drugs are also proving

805
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 1: to be as they were in the fifties before this,

806
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: you know, most of us are history of psychedelics begins

807
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: with Timothy Leary in a way. That's the end of

808
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: the first phase, which was some really serious research in

809
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: the fifties, and obviously, yeah, Huxley and a group of

810
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: psychiatrists who were having very good luck administering into their patients,

811
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: using it to cure alcohol addiction, using it to help

812
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: people die. And so I started learning about this research,

813
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: which is underway now, and I wrote a long piece

814
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: for The New Yorker about it, called The Trip Treatment

815
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: last year, and um, and realized there was a whole

816
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: world I didn't know that much about. And here I was,

817
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: you know, nearing sixty and um, thinking about mortality and

818
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: and here was this drug that was I saw helping

819
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 1: people die. And I thought that was fascinating. Why was that?

820
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: Why would why would this mystical experience change your complete

821
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: outlook about mortality? And I saw that in many people

822
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: that it did, and I saw them die in different

823
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: kind of deaths, so that that kind of got me interested.

824
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: And since then I've been puzzling over questions of like,

825
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: why should a mushroom make a chemical that gives humans

826
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 1: mystical experiences? That's kind of trippy Cooked, which is on Netflix. Now.

827
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me is You've given me a great gift, truly,

828
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 1: because I've got little kids and I want to teach

829
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: them about food by cooking food with them. I don't

830
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 1: want to sit there and say to them, don't eat

831
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: that and don't eat that, and you're not gonna you

832
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: can't have that. I want to sit down and want

833
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: to sit them, Well, what do you want? We're gonna

834
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: make it. Whatever you want to eat. By now you

835
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: can hear's how you make We're gonna make Let's do it.

836
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: I can't wait. You know. Some of the sweetest moments

837
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 1: of my time with my son when he was still

838
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 1: at home was cooking together. And you see a little

839
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: of that in that in that second episode. Um, but

840
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: it was there's something about especially with a teenager. Teenagers

841
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: are very hard to talk to eye to eye, all right,

842
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: it gets very difficult. Um, I have a twenty year

843
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:42,720
Speaker 1: old sorm Okay, so you know, but side by side.

844
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: That's why you have all your difficult conversations with your

845
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 1: kid in the car, usually right because you're both looking

846
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: their head but but chopping onions. Um. You know, working

847
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,799
Speaker 1: side by side, doing a project together, that's the best

848
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:56,400
Speaker 1: time to talk to your kid, and that's when they

849
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: just open themselves up. I thank Michael Pollen for opening

850
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:07,839
Speaker 1: up to me. Our time was up before I got

851
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: to ask him what his favorite packaged food is. I

852
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Speaker 1: found out later cracker Jack's You can see Michael Pollin's

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Speaker 1: four parts series Cooked on Netflix. I'm Alec Baldwin and

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Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. M