Michael Pollan

“The astounding variety of foods on offer in the modern supermarket obscures the fact that the actual number of species in the modern diet is shrinking. For reasons of economics, the food industry prefers to tease its myriad processed offerings from a tiny group of plant species, corn and soybeans chief among them.”

“People in Slow Food understand that food is an environmental issue.”

“French cooking is really the result of peasants figuring out how to extract flavor from pedestrian ingredients. So most of the food that we think of as elite didn’t start out that way.”

“Even if you don’t think you can cook well, you can cook better than the food industry.”

“Simply by starting to cook again, you declare your independence from the culture of fast food. As soon as you cook, you start thinking about ingredients. You start thinking about plants and animals and not the microwave. And you will find that your diet, just by that one simple act, that is greatly improved.”

“Every major food company now has an organic division. There’s more capital going into organic agriculture than ever before.”

“The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.”

“You can make real food in 20, 30 minutes, but we’ve convinced ourselves that it is a rocket science. It’s a shame. It’s the media and the food industry: they’ve fed our panic around time.”