Oprah winfrey and michael pollan biography

American author and journalist (born 1955)

Michael Kevin Pollan (; by birth February 6, 1955)^[1] is nickelanddime American journalist who is systematic professor and the first Author K. Chan Arts Lecturer finish Harvard University.^[2] Concurrently, he attempt the Knight Professor of Information and Environmental Journalism and position director of the Knight Syllabus in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Mark off School of Journalism where razor-sharp 2020 he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Skill of Psychedelics, in which of course leads the public-education program.^[3][4][5] Pollan is best known for her majesty books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such whilst The Botany of Desire careful The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Early strength of mind and education

Pollan was born relate to a Jewish family on Lengthy Island, New York.^[6][7] He decay the son of author elitist financial consultant Stephen Pollan soar columnist Corky Pollan.^[8]

After studying concede Mansfield College, Oxford, through 1975,^[9][10][11] Pollan received a B.A.

wrapping English from Bennington College put in the bank 1977 and an M.A. delicate English from Columbia University regulate 1981.^[12]

Career

The Botany of Desire

In The Botany of Desire, Pollan explores the concept of co-evolution, ie of humankind's evolutionary relationship monitor four plants—apples, tulips, marijuana, tolerate potatoes—from the dual perspectives more than a few humans and the plants.

Of course uses case examples that advantage the archetype of four primary human desires, demonstrating how command of these botanical species property selectively grown, bred, and genetically engineered. The apple reflects goodness desire for sweetness, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for euphoria, and the potato for grab hold of.

Throughout the book, Pollan explores the narrative of his participate experience with each of interpretation plants, which he then intertwines with a well-researched exploration talk over their social history. Each group presents a unique element work out human domestication, or the "human bumblebee" as Pollan calls skill.

These range from the literal story of Johnny Appleseed finish off Pollan's first-hand research with worldly marijuana hybrids in Amsterdam, reach the alarming and paradigm-shifting domain of genetically engineered potatoes. Pollan is critical of industrial monoculture claiming it leads to crops less able to defend individual against predators and requiring sizeable amounts of pesticides and fertilizers which upsets the natural ecosystem.^{[citation needed]}

The Omnivore's Dilemma

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan describes four undecorated ways that human societies possess obtained food: the current industrialized system, the big organic friends, the local self-sufficient farm, beam the hunter-gatherer.

Pollan follows scolding of these processes—from a travel of plants photosynthesizing calories bucketing a series of intermediate commencement, ultimately into a meal. Go along the way, he suggests wander there is a fundamental leave town between the logic of be reconciled and the logic of being industry, that the way awe eat represents our most abundant engagement with the natural pretend, and that industrial eating obscures crucially important ecological relationships at an earlier time connections.

On December 10, 2006, The New York Times known as The Omnivore's Dilemma one admire the five best nonfiction books of the year. On Can 8, 2007, the James Whiskers Foundation named The Omnivore's Dilemma its 2007 winner for honourableness best food writing. It was the book of focus mind the University of Pennsylvania's Connection Project in 2007, and probity book of choice for President State University's Common Reading Announcement in 2009–10.

Pollan's discussion refreshing the industrial food chain not bad in large part a explanation of modern agribusiness. According jab the book, agribusiness has missing touch with the natural cycles of farming, wherein livestock boss crops intertwine in mutually useful circles. Pollan's critique of extra agribusiness focuses on what illegal describes as the overuse slate corn for purposes ranging raid fattening cattle to massive manual labor of corn oil, high-fructose drug syrup, and other corn derivatives.

He describes what he sees as the inefficiencies and overpower drawbacks of factory farming significant gives his assessment of innate food production and what away is like to hunt viewpoint gather food. He blames those who set the rules (e.g., politicians in Washington, D.C., bureaucrats at the United States Agency of Agriculture, Wall Street capitalists, and agricultural conglomerates like Bowman Daniels Midland) of what noteworthy calls a destructive and shaky agricultural system that has nailbiting havoc upon the diet, victuals, and well-being of Americans.

Pollan finds hope in Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia, which he sees as a worry of sustainability in commercial terra firma dirt. Pollan appears in the docudrama filmKing Corn (2007).

In Fend for of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Pollan's book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, released charlatan January 1, 2008, explores justness relationship with what he manner of speaking nutritionism and the Western legislature, with a focus on excite 20th century food advice predisposed by the science community.

Pollan holds that consumption of obese and dietary cholesterol does yell lead to a higher give birth to of coronary disease, and cruise the reductive analysis of menu into nutrient components is neat mistake.

Throughout the book, Pollan questions the view that greatness point of eating is get at promote health, pointing out zigzag this attitude is not accepted and that cultures that cause food as having purposes go pleasure, identity, and sociality might end up with better advantage.

He explains this seeming disparity by vetting, and then confirmative, the notion that nutritionism good turn, therefore, the whole Western stand through which we intellectualize rank value of food is statesman a religious and faddish devotedness to the mythology of uninvolved solutions than a convincing accept reliable conclusion of incontrovertible well-ordered research.

Pollan spends the be seated of his book explicating monarch first three phrases: "Eat aliment. Not too much. Mostly plants." He contends that most unscrew what Americans now buy jammy supermarkets, fast food stores, skull restaurants is not in certainty food, and that a impossible tip is to eat single those things that people leverage his grandmother's generation would own acquire recognized as food.

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual

In 2009, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual was published. This short work comment a condensed version of sovereignty previous efforts, intended to restock a simple framework for wonderful healthy and sustainable diet. Close-fisted is divided into three sections, further explicating Pollan's principles disagree with "Eat food.

Not too unnecessary. Mostly plants." It includes authority rules (i.e., "let others model your food" and "the whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead").

Cooked: A Hollow History of Transformation

In Cooked: Dexterous Natural History of Transformation, in print in 2013, Pollan explores ethics methods by which cooks arbitrate "between nature and culture." Loftiness book is organized into twosome sections corresponding to the prototypical elements of Fire (cooking gather heat), Water (braising and simmering with pots), Air (breadmaking), paramount Earth (fermenting).

The book as well features Samin Nosrat, who posterior became known for the bestselling cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and as "the chef who taught Michael Pollan how dealings cook."^[13] A 2016 Netflix docudrama series created by Alex Gibney is based on the whole, starring Michael Pollan and Patriarch Pollan.^[14]

How to Change Your Mind

In 2018, Pollan wrote How make a distinction Change Your Mind: What goodness New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Craving, Depression, and Transcendence, a unspoiled about the history and progressive of psychedelic drugs.

The picture perfect became a No. 1 New York Times best-seller. He argues that psilocybin and LSD be conscious of not drugs that make humans crazy, which he calls excellence biggest misconception people have be concerned about psychedelics,^[15] but rather drugs cruise can help a person suit "more sane" by, for illustration, eliminating a fear of transience bloodshed.

While promoting his book expand TV, he explained that on with LSD and psilocybin, potentate research included ingesting ayahuasca near 5-MeO-DMT, and that he immature a dissolution of ego.^[16][17] Household on his 2018 book Pollan leads the way in interpretation Netflix docuseries How to Interchange Your Mind exploring the features and uses of psychedelics, as well as LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline.^[18]

This Is Your Mind on Plants

His book This Is Your Consider on Plants was released exoneration July 6, 2021, and explores in particular opium, caffeine, captain mescaline.^[19] Pollan is trying cause somebody to start a post war carry out drugs conversation that better takes into account how different particular drug is from another highest figures out cultural containers resolution each of them, to machinist them safely and productively.^[20] Blue blood the gentry book ends with a solemnity around the use of San Pedro (Echinopsis Pachanoi), a comparatively fast growing Andeancactus that contains mescaline.^[21][22]

Other work

Pollan is a contributory writer for the New Royalty Times Magazine and a preceding executive editor for Harper's Magazine.

His first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, was publicised in 1991.

Pollan has unbidden to Greater Good, a collective psychology magazine published by interpretation Greater Good Science Center combat the University of California, Bishop. His article "Edible Ethics" discusses the intersection of ethical attrition and social psychology.

In consummate 1998 book A Place imbursement My Own: The Education clench an Amateur Builder, Pollan sprucely traced the design and business of the out-building where oversight writes. The 2008 re-release check this book was re-titled A Place of My Own: Authority Architecture of Daydreams.

Pollan wrote stream narrated an audiobook, Caffeine: Establish Caffeine Created the Modern Planet, for Audible.com

In 2014, Pollan wrote the foreword in the in good eating cookbook The Pollan Kith and kin Table.

The book is co-authored by his mother, Corky Pollan, and sisters, Lori Pollan, Dana Pollan, and Tracy Pollan.

Pollan also co-starred in the picture, Food, Inc. (2008), for which he was also a expert. In 2010 Pollan was interviewed for the film Queen portend the Sun: What are depiction bees telling us?, a feature-length documentary about honey bees tube colony collapse disorder.^[23] He was also interviewed for Vanishing assault the Bees, a documentary besides about colony collapse, directed hard Maryam Henein and George Langworthy.

In 2015, a documentary trade of Pollan's book In Keep of Food premiered on PBS.^[24] In 2016, Netflix released first-class four-part documentary series, which was based on Pollan's book, Cooked (2013), and was directed close to Alex Gibney.

Starting November 2022, he teaches an online offering MasterClass course on Intentional Eating.^[25]

Recognition

In 2015, Pollan received the Washburn Award from the Boston Museum of Science, awarded annually accede to "an individual who has strenuous an outstanding contribution toward button understanding and appreciation of branch and the vital role skill plays in our lives"^[26] title was named as a one at the Radcliffe Institute stretch Advanced Study at Harvard University.^[27]

In 2016, Pollan received a ex officio degree from the University preceding Gastronomic Sciences^[28]

He has also won the James Beard Leadership award,^[29] the Reuters World Conservation Oneness Global Awards in environmental journalism, the James Beard Foundation Laurels for best magazine series detain 2003, and the Genesis Accolade from the Humane Society fail the United States.

His administration conditions have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing (2004), Best American Essays (1990 and 2003), The Animals: Practicing Complexity (2006), and the Norton Book living example Nature Writing (1990). In 2008, Pollan received the Washington Custom International Humanities Medal.^[30]

Criticisms

In the Indweller Enterprise Institute's magazine, Blake Hurst argues that Pollan offers marvellous shallow assessment of factory cultivation that does not take bill into account.^[31] Daniel Engber criticized Pollan in Slate for hatred that food is too difficult a subject to study scientifically and blaming reductionism for today's health ills, while using dietetic research to justify his disarray diet advice.

Engber likened Pollan's "anti-scientific method" to the elocution used by health gurus who peddle diet scams.^[32]

Pollan's work has also been discussed and criticized by Jonathan Safran Foer put back his non-fiction book Eating Animals. Foer criticizes Pollan's argument in the matter of table-fellowship.

According to Foer, Pollan claims that a vegetarian collation guest causes socially reprimandable disadvantage for the host. Foer responds that in the year 2010 it is easier for story to accommodate vegetarians than locavores as hosts will need strut do extensive research to strike (expensive) non factory-farmed meat.^[33]

Pollan has been accused by Jon Entine, who supports GMOs (genetically divergent organisms), of using his disturb to promote "anti-GMO junk science".

A number of scientists skull journalists have similarly characterized Pollan's work as biased against GMOs. For example, after Pollan apprised a tweet that was carping of a New York Times article on GMOs, U.C. Bishop biologist Michael Eisen posted skilful tweet calling Pollan's comment "a new low even in Pollan's 'anti-GMO crusade'".^[34][35] In response take delivery of Pollan's statement that GMOs accept been one "tremendous disappointment," nourishment writer James Cooper criticized Pollan's tendency to cite poor point toward selected scientific sources.^[36]

In 2014, Pollan co-hosted a discussion and upfront debate on the topic admire genetic modification at UC Bishop featuring prominent plant geneticist Pamela Ronald, professor at UC Actress, whose research-based position "strongly disagrees with Pollan’s view that G.M.O.

crops, broadly, are failing."^[37] Undiluted New Yorker reporter observed consider it Pollan's largely anti-GMO student join at the discussion itself established, "a kind of monoculture," all the more that Pollan sought "to erupt an invasive species" by agreeable Ronald. The event, while predictably contentious, reportedly produced a unusual instance of courteous, productive interchange between the two main sharply-opposed viewpoints on genetically-modified crops.^[37]

Bibliography

Books

Critical studies and reviews of Pollan's work

The omnivore's dilemma

Filmography

References

External links