Anyone else think Michael Pollan is an hysterical technophobe?

[Odin2005]

Seriously, that's the feeling I get from his books. If we did things his way billions would starve.

[Warpy]

1. His diet idea, "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" is a sound one

because our diet heavy in meats, fats, salt and sugar is killing us.

I haven't bothered to read any of his books, though, so I'll let you be the judge about whatever else he says.

It should be noted that he's a journalism professor, not a nutritionist or an agriculture specialist.

[salvorhardin]

2. I haven't read any of his books either

I have heard him interviewed quite a bit and I haven't heard him saying anything terrifically objectionable yet. I think there's a certain contingent of radical back-to-nature types who <em>think</em> Pollan is speaking for them, but they're not hearing what he's really saying.

OTOH, while I think his new book is an interesting idea from a cultural anthropological perspective, choosing your foods based upon a set of rigid rules is imbecilic and potentially dangerous. It's that kind of thinking that leads to eating disorders.

Does he go farther astray in his books than his usual schtick that Warpy already mentioned?

[Odin2005]

3. Generally he's anti-GMO, anti-meat, pro-local, and pro-organic.

His locavore attitudes are criticized in a book I've read called Green Metropolis, which criticizes "back to the land" ideology more generally as actual harmful to the environment by promoting sprawl and inefficiency.

[Warpy]

5. Locavores are kind of a joke

because a good 75% of us would starve to death if we were restricted to eating only that stuff that grew within 100 miles of where we live. They're all starry eyed types who don't bother to think things like climate and arability of land through and whether or not the best land use in parts of the country with extremely short growing seasons just might be industry and cities full of office infrastructure.

[salvorhardin]

7. I didn't know his views were so loopy

He must take care to not expose the more extreme views to NPR's audiences (which is where I mostly hear him). I do remember now that he's pro-local. I'm not opposed to that, having grown up in upstate NY, but for large urban areas it doesn't work very well. Like you said, it only increases sprawl. Brian Dunning has criticized the efficiency angle on Skeptoid vis a vis the traveling salesman problem.

[Codeine]

11. Brian Dunning occasionally gets loopy himself.

The Libertarian angle comes out a bit strongly on Skeptoid now and again.

[salvorhardin]

12. Oh, no kidding

He's best when he sticks to the pseudoscience/paranormal topics. I did appreciate the traveling salesman analysis of locally grown produce though. I thought it was an interesting and valid consideration. Of course, efficiency isn't everything when we're talking about food and he was rightly criticized for reducing the problem to just that. On the other hand, it's a roughly ten minute podcast and in my book nobody excels at distilling down a topic like Dunning. Plus I just find him entertaining.

[GoneOffShore]

10. He's not anti meat - He is anti "2lbs of steak with bacon on top" meat

Americans eat far too much protein than we need or is good for us or for the planet.

He's certainly pro-local, which is not a bad thing. And pro organic which is certainly better than pro Monsanto.

[Codeine]

4. Like most of us he's a mixed bag.

He's right that people need to eat a lot less meat for both environmental and health reasons, but his fear of modern agricultural advances is silly and unfounded, and you're quite right that abandoning such techniques would mean less food for an ever-growing populace.

[Odin2005]

6. I agree completely.

IMO his romanticism causes him to go after the wrong thing. Technology, including GMOs and fertilizers, are NOT the problem, its misuse and poor use of the technology because of greed and the pressures of global capitalist market forces that is the problem.

Though I agree with the criticism of monocultures, IMO an ideal future agriculture would consist of farms with many different crops growing at one time that are rotated regularly to different small plots and are worked by robots. Things are done so as to minimize the need for artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Instead of pesticides the robots would have a system of nano-machines that hunt down and destroy pests and then decompose into harmless compounds if not recovered by the robots.

[Orrex]

8. He was really funny in The Meaning of Life

Oh, wait a minute...

[realisticphish]

9. haha

that's the first thing I thought when I read the thread title as well

[semillama]

13. The one big problem with the anti-GMO types is this

All of them fail to address Ug99.

That's the wheat fungus that has the potential to obliterate most of the world's wheat crops. About the only way to stop it is through GMOs.

[trotsky]

14. Yup, alarms are already sounding over that.

And for good reason. All it takes is one spore. I'm sure we could come up with a resistant type of wheat with enough time - but we may not have much time, and what other undesirable traits might come along for the ride? Reduced yield? Lower nutrition? Impossible to know.

[semillama]

15. One thing I anticipate to be floated as a solution

would be to diversify cereal crops, which would be a good idea anyway. But you'd have to get that program rolling now and convince farmers that growing quinoa in place of some of their wheat crop is worth doing.